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Kansas is looking to bring the Wizards and Cerner to the Legends
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Kansas Department of Commerce Secretary David Kerr today presented the Unified Government of Wyandotte County with a proposal that could bring a new Cerner office complex and a Kansas City Wizards soccer stadium to the Village West District. The proposal includes over $85 million in state tax credits and cash incentives. As part of the package, Wyandotte County would be authorized to use $145 million of state sales tax revenue to back bonds to finance the project.
For it part, Cerner plans to commit to bringing in 4500 new jobs at an average salary of $65,000. State officials state that the potential exist for a total of 9000 new jobs.
The $414 million project will include hotel and a youth soccer field complex. These items will not be financed with incentives from the state or Wyandotte County.
The proposal is supported by Governor Mark Parkinson said. “I appreciate Secretary Kerr’s work in negotiating this opportunity and ensuring that if we are successful, we stand to make a return on our investment to the benefit of Kansas taxpayers across the state.”
This is a great opportunity for Kansas to bring jobs into the state, especially with unemployment hovering over 7.1%. However, we need to proceed with caution. As the state continues to be in an economic downturn, with budgets stretched to their limits, it is imperative that the Department of Commerce extract firm commitments from the organizations to create these jobs. We can not afford to take revenue that is needed for important services and hand it out to Corporations with a guarantee on our investment.
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