Update: The personal property tax incentive was not extended to Vestas either for the 2012 budget. In the 2011 budget Vestas received $96,252 in tax incentives. Commissioner Sean Conway said the vote to discontinue the incentives going forward for both Abound and Vestas was 5-0 in December 2011. The same measure was defeated for the 2011 budget on a 3-2 vote.
Bad news for employees and taxpayers, Abound Solar, Colorado’s high profile manufacturer of “next-generation thin-film cadmium telluride solar modules” and recipient of a $400 million Department of Energy loan, just announced it is laying off 70 percent (280 employees) of its Colorado workforce.
Some suspected storm clouds on the horizon for Abound. Despite a late fall PR blitz that included a “news story” in the Denver Business Journal that read more like an Abound press release, the Commissioners of Weld County, where Abound’s manufacturing plant is located, acted on their suspicions that all was not right with the company and suspended nearly $100,000 in property tax incentives for 2012.
In 2011 Weld County extended $98,445 in personal property tax incentives to the solar module manufacturer, but when it came up for renewal in December for the 2012 budget, commissioners decided to save the taxpayers that money instead. Commissioner Sean Conway explained he wasn’t convinced that Abound actually was creating jobs for county residents, which was the intended purpose of tax incentives.
Just days after the Weld County Commissioners reviewed the county’s 2012 budget that excluded Abound incentives, CEO Craig Witsoe defended Abound in the Denver Business Journal calling themselves the “anti-Solyndra.” Witsoe further explained that even though Abound still wasn’t profitable after four years in business and a $400 million taxpayer-guaranteed loan, it was on the brink of boosting production. So far, Abound has drawn down only $70 million of the $400 million.
For more than a year the Independence Institute’s investigative reporter Todd Shepherd and the energy policy center have been detailing Abound Solar’s problems. We take no pleasure reporting about people losing their jobs or taxpayers’ losing their money. Unfortunately, Abound Solar is yet more proof that government should not be in the venture capitalist business because it has a nasty habit of picking losers. At least for the Weld County taxpayers, their commissioners came to that realization in time to save them $100,000.
