WYNNE — RWE Clean Energy is expected to request an additional tax abatement for its solar facility south of Wynne.
“They had approached council before COVID about that project and council did a tax abatement with them. The lawyer comes and does all of those meetings because there’s so many details,” said Wynne Mayor Jennifer Hobbs. “The abatement that was granted to them for that project capped out at what they estimated their investment was going to be in the project. Then, COVID happened. There was a delay.
“That project was a lot further down the road before they planned on starting that project,” she added. “Then, their investment was multi-millions of dollars more. It cost them much more to put that project in than they had originally anticipated prior to COVID.”
The Wynne City Council approved the tax abatement five years ago. It came with a $625,000 grant from RWE to the city of Wynne.
“They’re not expanding the project or anything like that. They just were seeing how much they were being charged in property taxes now that the project was completed,” Hobbs said. “They just wanted to know if there’s any way that city council would go ahead and extend that abatement for the full price that they had invested into.”
Mayor Hobbs said the additional abatement is expected to save RWE about $3.6 million in taxes, not including school taxes.
“My question to them was how much money are we as a city of Wynne, if we grant that abatement, how much are we saving you in taxes,” she said. “We need to come to an agreement of what grant needs to come to the city of Wynne. I understand it’s still got to be profitable for that company.”
Officials from RWE are expected to formally make the request to the Wynne City Council during its September meeting.
RWE expected to seek additional tax abatement from Wynne
