County hires consultant for potential solar tax abatement

The Young County Commissioners Court took the next step in their process for the Tapaderos solar farm project by hiring a consultant to discuss and potentially negotiate a tax abatement for the project. 

The county hired Jeff G. Snowden of Capex Consulting Group. Snowden was in attendance digitally at last week's commissioners court meeting Monday, June 2, discussing the potential of an abatement for the solar farm project. 

The most significant piece of information Snowden provided was that he estimated the solar farm project was actually of much higher value than its developers originally gave credit for. 

Originally, the project had an approximate value of around $264.4 million. However, Snowden said he believes the project is actually worth closer to $510 million which would add about 30% to the project’s taxable value. 

With this figure, as well as Graham’s history of lowering its sales tax, Snowden told the commissioners court last Monday he can estimate a potential abatement which would allow between 65-75% of the total revenue for the project to be kept. 

The commissioners court believes that Snowden is the right candidate for the role of consultant after County Judge Win Graham said he fielded several others. 

“I reached out to Chris Nichols of Brady & Hamilton, Wetsel & Lederle, Underwood Law Firm out of Amarillo, Sherwood & Sherwood and Haley & Olson firm in Waco,” Graham said. 

While Graham said he was happy with those law firms, it was the sense of aggressiveness in Snowden that made him appealing. 
Commissioner Stacy Creswell expressed that in order to legitimately evaluate a project like this, they would need to have someone who would be willing to push matters forward directly to get an approximate value. 

“I say that we go with the guy that is going to try and get an actual dollar amount on the project,” Creswell said. 

A unanimous 4-0 motion was passed to bring on Snowden as a consultant for the project. 

Graham was the only one who abstained from voting as he has chosen to withdraw himself from those decisions due to a conflict of interest. 

Immediately after the motion was passed, there was concern from some members of the public in attendance. 

Arwin Johnson asked the court if they had any significant updates in terms of a potential reinvestment zone previously proposed and if there were any results on the environmental impact study which was taking place alongside plans for the project. The court did not have concrete updates on either of these measures.

The commissioners clarified that they were not voting to pass or reject a tax abatement at this meeting, but only to hire Snowden. 

Snowden will evaluate the potential “pros and cons” of the project while keeping tabs on those previous results and potentially negotiating an abatement proposal in the future if the court feels they can find a deal that is fair to the county. 

As of now, the court has not made a final decision on the abatement but further discussions will be held with Snowden’s consultation going forward.

The project from Titus LVC is a proposed 300 megawatt power facility with 200 megawatts of battery energy storage with the focus of increasing renewable energy.