Public monies ramp up Ozarks' projects, jobs

Monett-based EFCO Corp. is getting half a million dollars in low-interest state loans for a recently-started expansion, while Bolivar’s Duck Creek Technologies will be the first in the state to reap the benefits of the state’s Quality Jobs Program.

EFCO expansion

EFCO broke ground in January on a 67,000-square-foot, $2.1 million plant expansion.

The state is chipping in $1.15 million toward the expansion: $500,000 in Active Fund Loans and a $650,000 Community Development Block Grant to the city of Monett for street improvements and utility relocation.

CEO Chris Fuldner said EFCO employs about 1,600 at its Monett facility, manufacturing aluminum windows, entrances and curtain wall systems for commercial structures.

Fuldner said the new addition, set for a November completion, would allow the company to add about 200 jobs through the implementation of a third metal extrusion machine.

“It’s going to increase our capabilities, particularly with extrusions, by about 50 percent,” Fuldner said.

“That will allow us to grow in the future here in Monett – we’re about at capacity from a metal standpoint with our current two presses.”

The $650,000 in state money, which the city will use to widen Chapel Drive to three lanes, has a big impact on the city of Monett.

The city budgeted a little more than $1.4 million on its streets department for the 2005-2006 fiscal year.

According to Mark Nelson, head of the economic development committee for the Monett Chamber of Commerce, the impact goes beyond just this project.

“The (program) has helped enhanced the prospects of manufacturing job growth in the state of Missouri,” Nelson said, “and those benefits move down to the community, in the number of people working and able to pay taxes and spend those dollars locally.”

EFCO is not alone in getting state assistance for expansions.

Missouri Department of Economic Development spokeswoman Kristi Jamison said the state’s Active Fund Loans, part of the CDBG program, are given to companies to purchase new machinery, equipment or working capital. The loan program was set up for companies that have exhausted other forms of financing for startup or expansion costs.

Duck Creek jobs

The Missouri Quality Jobs program, which offers tax credits to companies in exchange for hiring or retaining employees and paying them more than the county average wage, has approved the applications of 25 companies across the state.

Bolivar-based Duck Creek Technologies is the first company that will begin seeing the benefits of the Quality Jobs program as it adds new jobs over the next five years. The 65 jobs – a number Duck Creek CEO Doug Roller termed “conservative” – must pay more than the Polk County average of $23,900 annually to qualify for the program.

According to Missouri DED estimates, Duck Creek will receive as much as $827,000 over the next five years through the program’s tax credits; the new jobs are expected to provide more than $4 million in additional wages.

Roller said the program, which Polk County Economic Development Director Bud Godfrey alerted him to, offers more than just financial benefits for his company.

“I also think that the jobs program itself creates additional awareness for Duck Creek as a company,” he said.

“Finding great employees – particularly ones with technology or insurance experience – is important to us. The publicity around the program, plus the ability to help us hire people (using) that financial incentive, are important factors.”[[In-content Ad]]