Hancock County Council shot down a request for a second abatement for Walmart for its Mt. Comfort distribution center Tuesday evening during a joint meeting of the Hancock County Council and the Hancock County Commissioners.
The vote came before the county council only. After the original motion for a 10-year abatement for personal property died for lack of a second, an amended motion for a five-year abatement failed to pass by a vote of 2-3. Council members Kent Fisk and Jim Shelby voted in favor of the five-year abatement, while Mary Noe, Robin Lowder and Scott Wooldridge voted against it. The remaining two council members, Keely Butrum and Tammy Settergren, were not present at Tuesday’s meeting.
The proposed abatement was for $440 million of personal property for the e-commerce fulfillment center. According to filings with the Hancock County Auditor’s Office, $430 million would be spent on logistic distribution equipment, while the remaining $10 million would be used for information technology.
Walmart, the largest company in the world by revenue, is in the middle of a 10-year abatement granted in 2020 for the construction of the e-commerce fulfillment center.
Walmart in Hancock County
Hancock Economic Development Council executive director Randy Sorrell first approached the county council in April for a second tax abatement for the e-commerce fulfillment center. When it opened in 2023, it was the largest building Walmart had ever constructed in North America, with a total area of 2.2 million square feet.
Tax abatements are a tax exemption municipal and county governments can use to attract new industry into their area. This is done by exempting all or a portion of the new assessed value, resulting from investment, from the property tax roll. Tax abatements can range from one to 10 years.
Sorrell said in the April meeting he does not expect Walmart to hire any more employees at the fulfillment center in connection with this proposed second abatement, which would go toward outfitting the facility with robotics.
The passing of Senate Enrolled Act 1 delayed conversations for a few months, as officials sought to understand the new rules around property tax in the state
Sorrell appeared again at the Tuesday meeting, this time with Greg Nunn, senior leader of tax incentives at Walmart. Sorrell mentioned Walmart has been in Hancock County since the 1980s, when it opened a store in Greenfield. In the mid 1990s, Walmart built its first distribution center in the area on Muskegon Drive in Greenfield for its Sam’s Club warehouse chain. Walmart also operates a return center in Mt. Comfort.
Sorrell said today, Walmart employs 2,326 people across its various locations in the county — including over 1,400 at the distribution center — and paid property taxes in 2024 totaling $1,519,181.06. Walmart’s 2025 spring tax payment totaled $816,987.87, Sorrell told the council.
He added that Walmart is the eighth-highest taxpayer in the county because of the current abatement for the e-commerce center, but it has the highest assessed value in the county, totaling $281,143,280.
Before Walmart opened the Mt. Comfort facility, a Walmart distribution center in Plainfield experienced a large fire, prompting the response of hundreds of local fire departments and even the national response team of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Sorrell said there was not a decision at the time on what they would do with the Plainfield building, so they decided to box off the west end of the Mt. Comfort building for the time being.
“Mr. Nunn called me in March of this year and told me that this fulfillment center has been very successful. It’s sort of blown through their projections, and they thought that they could recognize even more efficiencies if they finished outfitting it with robotics,” Sorrell said.
Nunn told council members Walmart is exploring purchasing another building in the county for a second supply chain location.
“That’s just a testament to how pleased we are with not only just the county, the treatment of the county, also the workforce that the county produces,” Nunn said. “We’re going to continue to grow in the county. Please keep that in mind as you’re considering this request.”
Public comments
Several county residents spoke during the meeting addressing their beliefs about giving Walmart a potential tax abatement.
Julie Sedam said with Walmart’s investments into automatic distribution equipment, she believes Walmart is trying to compete with Amazon. Sedam, who retired from information technology, said it is cheaper in most cases for companies to replace equipment rather than repair it and that it would not be viable to consider an abatement on this technology.
“The length of time that this equipment is going to be viable is probably not much,” she said. “I think that their abatement will last longer than the technology itself will.”
Jack Parker, superintendent of Mt. Vernon Community School Corp., told the council that if the tax abatement is not approved by the council, the school district is set to gain funds each year due to the property being added to the assessed value of the distribution center. The school corporation would not receive as much otherwise if the abatement was granted. “An abatement of this size could mean millions of dollars” not coming to the district, Parker said — likely less than $5 million, but “that’s still a lot of money for us.”
He said with operations funds and local income tax revenue decreasing in future years due to the fallout from Senate Enrolled Act 1, as well as above-average growing student populations projected for the next several years for the district, “every penny matters.”
Paul Overhauser, attorney at Overhauser Law Offices in Greenfield, said his concern lies with Walmart seeking a large tax break for the equipment if it doesn’t add any new jobs to the area.
“To approve an abatement, the council has to evaluate the various factors and find out whether the costs that they are asking abatements for are reasonable. Well, you guys can’t do your job unless you have that itemization,” he said.
Leah Lederman, freelance writer and county resident, mentioned a sentiment shared by council members at the April meeting about the abatement that approving this abatement could set a precedent for other businesses to apply for personal property abatements. She also mentioned worries about the additional strain on the roads leading to the distribution center with the moving of the new equipment.
“If there’s a lot of product there, they’re going to need to move that product and bring that product in. So there’s going to be more trucks in an already congested area,” she said.
Brandon Wilch, Buck Creek Township fire chief, said township firefighters spent five hours last Saturday at the distribution center evacuating the building because of carbon monoxide buildup due to a crane that was running. A post on the Buck Creek Township Fire Department Facebook page said the department, alongside the fire departments of Sugar Creek and Vernon townships, worked to ventilate the structure and remove the harmful gases.
“There was active construction going on in the location. The equipment may not be installed, but I’d be curious if it’s on site,” he said.
The vote
Wooldridge noted that the economic revitalization area the distribution center is in — a requirement for gaining an abatement — was created in 2020 with the approval of the first Walmart abatement. These designations are 10-year designations. Wooldridge said he was concerned about the economic revitalization area designation expiring during the second abatement and the county needing to apply another designation to the area.
“My interpretation of the code means that unless we’re going to change the economic revitalization area and change it to extend it, it means we’d have to almost start over. That’s my interpretation of that code section,” Wooldridge, a practicing attorney, said.
Sorrell said the proposed declaratory resolution, filed with the abatement application, includes language to restart the 10-year period for the designation of the area.
Fisk said before the vote that he was proud of the original arrangement with Walmart in 2020, elaborating that the company “didn’t have to come here” and that it had other sites available. He said to Parker that if the abatement is not approved and the company decides not to add the property, Mt. Vernon will get no added funds from that.
However, the longtime council member also said he was baffled that a large corporation with an established presence in the county would come for a 10-year abatement schedule when it has the resources for the materials.
“My only fear is if you discourage people from expanding or from staying then when their tax abatement is up in 10 years, they figure out how to leave the community,” Fisk said. “I do think the 10-year abatement is too much.”
The motion to pass the declaratory resolution as presented with the 10-year abatement schedule was made by Shelby, but died without the motion getting a second, which would have allowed a vote to take place. After Sorrell told the council he would be verbally amending the declaratory resolution for a five-year schedule, Shelby made a motion for the amended resolution, with Fisk seconding the motion.
The roll call vote was tied at 2-2 when it came to Wooldridge, who was the deciding vote.
“I’m between zero and three years. So, this is a no on five years,” Wooldridge said as he announced his vote.