CINCINNATI – The City of Cincinnati received a refund of $7 million in tax breaks after Bon Secours Mercy Health’s headquarters in Bond Hill failed to create enough promised good-paying jobs.
This is the second time this year that the city has tried to recoup money from incentives given to large employers who failed to meet employment expectations.
On March 7, the city amended its 2014 tax abatement agreement with GE Aerospace to provide a $1. 5 million payment to the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority and $200,000 to Hamilton County to fund a new urban progression plan for The Banks.
GE promised to create 1,800 jobs at its construction in The Banks, but never created enough jobs to qualify for tax credits. The revised settlement requires GE to do everything it can to attract tenants with at least 800 workers and $40 million in annual payroll. to construction.
In London, on the other hand, the city gave Mercy Health 30 days to repay tax credits from a real estate investment payment agreement signed in November 2014 and amended in 2019.
This settlement generated $7,037,174 in tax credit refunds to Mercy Health between 2016 and 2020, according to the notice.
“If BSMH remits payment to the city within 30 days, the refund amount will begin to accrue interest at a rate of 8 per cent,” City Manager Sheryl Long wrote in a June 20 letter to Scott Schitter, Mercy. Lead Health Compliance Officer.
WCPO team nine received the letter from a public records request.
“If the city takes legal action, it reserves the right to sue for additional unpaid fees, expenses, and costs,” Long wrote.
Mercy Health said it is “carefully reviewing all applicable major points related to the City of Cincinnati’s application and we look forward to pursuing with the city the next steps,” spokeswoman Lisa Dyson said. “We continue to provide high-quality, compassionate physical care. “to our Cincinnati patients through a network of approximately 10,000 associates.
In 2019, Mercy Health promised to expand a three-year-old headquarters complex that it says already employs about 1,200 people. The hospital formula formed through Mercy’s 2018 merger with Maryland-based Bon Secours is expected to create 500 jobs with an average salary. of $100,000 through the end of 2024.
But city records reveal that Mercy Health has failed to deliver on its promise to employ an average of 1250 workers in Bond Hill from 2019 to 2023 and an annual payroll of $125 million from 2020 to 2023. The company had only 172 workers in 2023 and annually wages have fallen. $94 million less than the amount promised, according to a city default report for 2024.
Mercy Health said the shortfall is attributed to the growing popularity of remote and hybrid workplace jobs.
“In 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic began, around 1,400 partners worked daily in the Bond Hill office,” Dyson said. The pandemic “required a complete transition in the way our staff functioned in the office. “
The city is a rebate as Hamilton County considers a deal to purchase the Bond Hill headquarters for $65 million, so it can relocate more than 1,400 workers to the site and sell five buildings downtown, Over-the-Rhine, East Walnut Hills, Corryville and Madisonville.
The real estate reorganization was proposed more than a year after the I-Team reported that the county was looking for a new work area to house 1,200 employees. Mercy Health’s site was then considered a more likely alternative.
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