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03-E PEDC (07/11/01)MINUTES OF THE PARIS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION SPECIAL MEETING JULY 11, 2001 The Paris Economic Development Corporation met for special session on Tuesday, July 11, 2001, 4:00 P. M., at Heritage Hall, 1009 West Kaufman Street, Paris, Texas. President Mike Rhodes called the meeting to order with the following Directors present: Michael Dunn, and Don Wall. Also present were ex-officio Board Members Bobby Terry Christian, Executive Director Gary Vest, City Attorney Larry Schenk, Director of Finance Gene Anderson, and City Clerk Mattie Cunningham. President Rhodes announced that the Directors had been furnished minutes of previous meetings of the Paris Economic Development Corporation. He asked if there were any corrections or additions to the minutes of the previous meeting, and there were none. Director Mike Dunn made a motion, seconded by Director Don Wall, for approval of the minutes as presented. The motion carried unanimously. President Michael Rhodes asked Gene Anderson, Director of Finance for the City of Paris, to give the financial report for May. Mr. Anderson came forward stating that he would use the one page summary again. Mr. Anderson reminded the Board that in May nothing got posted against the account, so the expenditures side is essentially two months worth of expenditures and not one month. Mr. Anderson said Paris Economic Development Corporation started out at the beginning of the month with a total amount of funds of $1,827,030.21, sales tax $64,898.16, interest $1,342.55, and Paris Packaging loan payment of $32,000.00. Mr. Anderson advised that the expenditures were the usual and customary type for a total of $36,935.26, leaving a balance of restricted and unrestricted funds of $1,888,335.70. A motion was made by Director Don Wall, seconded by Director Michael Dunn, for approval of the Financial Statement as presented. The motion carried unanimously. Minutes of the PEDC July 1 l, 2001 Page 2 Gary Vest, Executive Director, introduced Lee Rattigan, Executive Vice President, and Greg Meares, Plant Manager of TCIM Services, Inc., who had asked to make a presentation before the board. Mr. Rattigan gave the board a progress report on their first year in operation and said this was an extremely successful first year. He gave an overview of TCIM Services in order to put their company in perspective. He said the company was founded in 1988. It is a minority company and it has been certified as a woman owned business in the year 2000. He said they had twelve call centers in four states. Mr. Rattigan advised the board that the company had shifted their service offering from being an Outbound Sales Organization to being an Inbound Customer Care Organization, so they are taking a lot of inbound calls for Fortune 500 Companies. He advised that the industry segments that it concentrates on are telecommunications, insurance and financial services, and the type of clients they serve are Fortune 500 companies. Mr. Rattigan said the revenues for TCIM should be about eighty million dollars. Mr. Rattigan said their Paris facility is designed for 330 workstations and they are fast approaching full capacity utilization of the investment commitment that they have committed to with PEDC, which was a million six fifty. He presented data that indicated they are in excess of 2.4 million. He said the other commitment they made to PEDC with respect to improvements was $200,000.00 and they are well over that by $530,000.00. Mr. Rattigan said they have, as recently as May, seventy-seven thousand hours of operations and since he had prepared this report, the operations for the month of June came in slightly over one hundred thousand hours. He said if you take that and convert that at thirty-five hours a week, that is seven hundred and thirty-six equivalent jobs, and their commitment to the Board was for 200 jobs. Mr. Rattigan told the Board that one of the more important aspects of establishing themselves as a long term employer in the community is to represent themselves as a full-time service oriented benefits offering employer. Mr. Rattigan told the Board that Minutes of the PEDC July 1 l, 2001 Page 3 when they first contemplated coming to Paris, Texas, they were looking more from the perspective of being an outbound provider of services and not so much as they have progressed being inbound. Mr. Rattigan said in that context, they had not planned to be offering employee benefits. He said at the beginning of this year they implemented an employee benefit program, which includes medical, dental, and life insurance. Mr. Meares came forward and gave an overview of the programs that they are servicing. Mr. Meares advised that they have created 125 additional support functions where they are in the process of working with employees by training them on Microsoft Office. Mr. Rattigan said they had expanded in terms of the fact that they have opened the first international location in Canada. He said another factor that the Board might be interested in is that they have 844 employees on their payroll, of those 56%, or 474, show their address as Paris, Texas, and they would like to continue to grow that proportion. Mr. Rattigan stated that it is likely that with the management practices of Mr. Meares that he is putting in place, and the third party verification program coming in, hopefully they can increase that percentage. Mr. Rattigan advised that some of their workstations are not being utilized at night and would like to bring in a program where they can make outbound calls in the evening hours. Mr. Rattigan said they have had a very successful first year. He advised that he has furnished Mr. Vest with the results of operations. Mr. Rattigan told the Board that TCIM had enhanced their legal commitment to the community by offering a minimum of 35 hours a week at present as opposed to the outbound work that they were doing which amounted to anywhere from 20 to 35 hours a week. He pointed out that the circumstances of performance under the contract were enhanced by offering 35 hours and introducing employee benefits. Mr. Rattigan respectfully requested that the Board consider giving a new grant in addition to the present grant considering that the company was offering 35 hours a week with benefits and that they are now well over 700 Minutes of the PEDC July 1 l, 2001 Page 4 jobs. Mr. Rattigan asked the Board to consider their request of 200 positions with equivalent of 35 hours a week at a rate of $2,500.00 per position. The proposed contract runs from July 1, 2000, through June 30, 2005. President Michael Rhodes stated that there are some legal questions as to what the board can and cannot do under their charter relative to existing businesses, but the board will consider TCIM's request. Resolution No. 2001-009, resolving that the monthly meetings of the Paris Economic Development Corporation be, and same are hereby set for 4:00 o'clock p.m. on the following dates: August 22, 2001; September 19, 2001; October 17, 2001; November 21,2001; December 19, 2001; January 23, 2002; February 20, 2002; March 20, 2002; April 18, 2002; May 22, 2002; June 19, 2002; and July 24, 2002, was presented. A motion was made by Director Don Wall, seconded by President Mike Rhodes, for approval of the resolution. The motion carried unanimously. President Rhodes called for consideration of and action on appointing an auditor to conduct the independent Annual Audit for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2001. President Mike Rhodes advised the Board that in the past ,for cost consideration, PEDC has use the same auditor that the City of Paris uses, and the city will be letting those bids soon, and they will make that decision in August. A motion was made by Director Mike Dunn, seconded by Director Wall, to use the same auditor that the City of Paris will be using. The motion carried 3 ayes, 0 nays. Mr. Vest stated that since the last meeting, the advertising campaign has brought twenty-two inquiries, and there has been several direct contacts and Minutes of the PEDC July 1 l, 2001 Page 5 inquiries. He said some of the inquiries have been from the direct mailing that they have been doing in California and the direct mailing for the Oliver Rubber facility flyer. Mr. Vest told the board that they have been doing a different thing with the Oliver Rubber Building by running advertisements in the Houston Chronicle, The Dallas Morning News, and the Mercury News, which is a newspaper that serves a lot of the west coast in California. Also Mr. Vest said that on August 27th, he sent Eric to New Orleans to the ICETEA International Food Technology Show, since food is one of their target groups. Mr. Vest said they were looking at several trade shows. Mr. Vest said Eric came up with the idea of capitalizing on the fact that Paris Junior College has the best jewelry school in the country. They started looking atj ewelry manufacturers and how they might complement the fact that we have a jewelry school with the manufacturers. Mr. Vest said they have been working with the Paris Junior College people in the jewelry school. He said Paris Junior College has a show coming up in September that he and Eric want to go to. Mr. Vest advised that they will not let them display at this particular show, and the only way they can get in is because they are going as representatives of Paris Junior College. Mr. Vest told the Board another thing that prompted them to see out jewelry manufacturing is the Heilig-Meyers Furniture building. This building has 28,000 square feet that is fully air conditioned and is the type of facility that you use for a call center and it is perfect for a jewelry manufacturer. Mr. Vest said that Bobby Walters has been very involved with them on this venture. Mr. Vest said they have a food show coming up September 7th through the 10th called the North American Food and Equipment Manufacturers. Mr. Vest explained that this is another show where they cannot exhibit, but they can walk the show and visit with all of the exhibitors there. Mr. Vest also said most of the board members know about Earthgrains being bought out by Sara Lee, and he had visited with David Owens the Plant Manager of Earthgrains, and it appears that things seem to be good. They do Minutes of the PEDC July 11,2001 Page 6 not expect any change. Mr. Vest said they were still in negotiations with Earthgrains about future expansion and he is meeting with them on July 23rd at their plant to look at some other possible expansions. He said there is still the problem with the sewer rate out there. There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned. MICHAEL RHODES, PRESIDENT ATTEST: MATTIE CUNNINGHAM CITY CLERK