Boone County Commission approves Aurora Organic Dairy tax break

Boone County commissioners approved Thursday a tax break for Aurora Organic Dairy that was nearly two years in the making.

But there is some controversy around the approval.

One critic, Scott Dye, said factory farms hurt local family farms and that Aurora Organic Dairy’s business practices are suspect.

“We’re paying $5.2 million dollars in tax abatements to this company to create 100 jobs in 2019,” Dye said.

Dye said such tax breaks for large companies squeeze out independent farmers.

“In 2017 alone, the state lost more than 1,600 family dairy farmers and we’re on a pace to equal that, if not double that in 2019,” Dye said.

The commission gave initial unanimous approval to a 75 percent tax abatement for Aurora Organic Dairy in March 2017. Thursday’s vote will finalize that tax break. The incentive will help finance construction of Aurora’s plant on Waco Road in north Columbia, adjacent to the Kraft Heinz food plant.

The county is using Chapter 100 bonds to provide the incentive, allowing the company to forgo paying 75 percent of the property tax it would owe on the financed property for 10 years.

A company spokeswoman this week said Aurora has hired 57 employees and is on track to have 100 hired by the end of 2019. The plant is scheduled to open early next year and is expected to eventually employ about 130 to 160 people at an average wage of about $42,000 per year.

Boone County Southern District Commissioner Fred Parry said the tax break is lucrative for the city and the people of Boone County.

“This factory has been built and owned by the city of Columbia that was not producing any tax revenue at all,” Parry said.

Hey said the project will bring more jobs and sales tax revenue to the area even though it’s a tax break for the incoming company.

“In this day and age, unfortunately, we have to offer abatements to companies who are willing to come into our community to create jobs,” Parry said.

Parry said the company told county officials it has no plans to build other facilities in Missouri, including large-scale farms.

As far as questions about how Aurora labels its projects, another point of contention for some, Parry said the county has no ability to review whether Aurora’s products meet the proper standards to be called “organic.”

“There’s really nothing we can do to attest the organic value of their product,” Parry said.

The company has farms in Colorado and Texas with one in the works in Nebraska.

The abatement will go into affect in 2019 and the processing plant is expect to open the top of next year.