October 15, 2024

Where to begin? 

Well, let’s start with a question: How happy would you be if your property tax bill was 30 cents a square foot?

For a 2,000 square foot home, that would be $600 a year. Can you imagine for a 2,000 square foot home, $600.00 TOTAL ANNUAL PROPERTY TAXES?

Next question: Who is getting this sweetheart deal?

CNANO Technology, apparently a subsidiary of Jiangsu Cnano Technology Co. Ltd., located in Jiangsu, China. This company according to Reuters, “is a China-based company mainly engaged in the research and development (R&D), production and sales of nano carbon materials and related products.” 

Cnano Technology U.S.A. filed incorporation documents in Delaware, May 2022, according to county staff. However, there were no background checks on this new company with staff stating, 

“We do no financial background checks as part of the process for (the county) issuing IRBs (Industrial Revenue Bonds). There is no county liability for repayment. Therefore, we are not aware of any jurisdiction that does an advance, in depth financial screening for IRB beneficiaries.”

Really?

No background check on a company which had never done business in the U.S.A., newly formed in 2022 as a Delaware Corporation?

With no financial background check YOUR Johnson County Board of County Commissioners on June 1, 2023 by a 5-2 vote (Commissioner Ashcraft and I voted in the minority) approved:

WOW, what a deal for a company with no sales history and again from staff, “The building at NCCC (New Century Commerce Center) will be Cnano’s first facility in the U.S.A.” Oh, but it gets better. 

The IRB also granted them a sales tax exemption on all construction materials. Based on $34Mill of IRBs issued, that saved them approximately $1.7Mill in sales tax, perhaps more, depending on the actual cost of materials for the building and the amount for machinery. 

And I must ask, is there a pattern here? No financial background checks for a company with no sales history applying for over $34Mill in Industrial Revenue Bonds and according to our internal auditor “About 80% of invoices received by the county have no purchase order.”

Hmmmm…the issue of no controls on issuance of Industrial Revenue Bonds and no controls on 80% of the county’s 18,000 invoices received. 

And so goes the management of Johnson County, Kansas. An organization with a $1.818 BILLION dollar budget for fiscal year 2025.