Heritage Wind receives huge incentives for project bringing few jobs to community

Editor:

Recently, there have been some articles in the Orleans Hub regarding the Heritage Wind Project, projected start dates and construction, ways that they have given to organizations and community groups with grants, how much money they will be paying for the Host Community Agreement/Payment in Lieu of Taxes.

I would like to take this opportunity to shed a different light on this project and the reality of how much the Town of Barre, Orleans County, the Albion School District and all residents of these groups are actually giving to Heritage Wind (you will see that we are all being extremely generous this holiday season).

Let’s look at taxes first, from 2016 Heritage Wind has been touting through ads, signs etc. that they are going to reduce our taxes, now that we have actual numbers let’s look at that.

If they were to pay the same rate in taxes for a $373 million dollar project as everyone else does on their properties here is how much they would be paying annually for taxes:

Town of Barre (8.98% rate 2024) = $3,349,540

Orleans County (8.4% rate 2024) = $3,133,200

Albion School District (13.05% rate 2024) = $4,867,650

Total: $11,350,390

However, because of the Host Community Agreement and Payment in Lieu of Taxes here is how much they will actually be paying towards these entities:

Town of Barre (HCA Only*, 0 for PILOT) = $850,500 (75% tax break)

Orleans County (PILOT) = $141,750 (95% tax break)

Albion School District (PILOT) = $141,750 (97% tax break)

Total: $1,134,000

Congratulations to Heritage Wind, they are receiving a property tax break of $10,216,390 annually!  But the community organizations, and Town of Barre should be thrilled to receive the $250 to $4,000 grants that they have given out each year since 2020 to community groups that apply. Since 2020, they have given out $160,000 (about $32,000 annually) or 0.003% of the tax break that they will be receiving annually because of the HCA/PILOT agreement.

Our Economic Development Agency is “thrilled” for the opportunity to use the total of $4.5 million that they will be receiving, at the cost of losing $255.4 Million total in the 25 years of the HCA and PILOT versus Heritage Wind paying taxes like a majority of other businesses in Orleans County.

Critical to this is that the Town of Barre opted to take their portion as part of a Host Community Agreement instead of the Payment in Lieu of Taxes. What does that mean for the residents of Barre? Well, that means that the money that is received from Heritage Wind is not required to go to reduce taxes.

It can be used for anything that the current Town Board deems appropriate. They could use it to reduce taxes, increase wages of town employees, build a highway building, improvements to the Town Park or any other project. These projects could increase the annual budget and in the long run increase all of our taxes.

There is 0 guarantee that your taxes will be reduced at all by this project, so please remember that when you vote next November. Whereas, with the county and school district those are looked at as tax payments and if budgets were to stay the same theoretically could reduce your taxes.

Orleans County Economic Development Agency, and our local governments would not agree to such a thing, unless we were getting more and this is what the residents that are going to be most impacted by such a huge project wanted, right? Unfortunately, this assumption is wrong. There was never a Town vote; however, every survey that was done by the Town or individuals showed that this project and industrial wind was not desired in our community.

What about jobs, the construction and operation of such large structures must bring in tons of jobs and additional revenue into our community. Wrong again. As part of the application to the Office of Renewable Energy Siting (ORES), Heritage Wind was required to estimate how many jobs in Orleans County would be created, or additional position based on supply chain and this is what they shared in Table 27-11:

So Heritage Wind themselves may or may not hire up to 8 positions locally and appear to be seasonal. I have read the PILOT and HCA, and do not recall there being any requirement for any of these positions to be filled with local talent.

What about bringing in earnings to the county based on the needs for building/ construction, in table 27-13 Heritage Wind estimated that there would be an annual earnings of  $0.3 million for construction brought into Orleans County and no other industry would be impacted.

Congratulations to Heritage Wind, for receiving a huge (over $10 million annually) local  tax incentive to be in our community for a maximum of 8 positions and minimal additional revenue coming into our community, despite a majority of the residents in Barre not wanting such a project in our community.

Please keep this in mind when you read the press releases, and articles about this project.

Kerri Richardson

Barre