By Steve Kemme
The Cincinnati Enquirer

HAMILTON - Butler officials want to reclaim more than $100,000 in tax abatements that a Columbus-based company received before it shut down its Fairfield operation more than a year ago.

Hy-Tek Material Handling moved out of its building on Seward Road after three years of a 10-year tax abatement agreement. It had 25 employees at that site.

"I think we need to make an example of them that if you promise jobs in Butler County for tax inducements and then don't do it, we'll take back the inducements," Commissioner Mike Fox said Thursday.

The commissioners directed their attorney, Gary Sheets, to determine whether the county can take legal action to force Hy-Tek to pay back the county the tax abatements it received.

Scott Hardwick, the county's development specialist, estimated that the company received a tax break of $100,000 to $150,000 during the three years it operated in Fairfield.

Dave Tumbas, chief financial officer of Hy-Tek, declined to comment on the commissioners' contention that the company should pay its abated taxes to the county.

The issue surfaced Thursday, when the commissioners approved a tax abatement for Rieman & Arzman Custom Distributors Inc., a company that is moving from West Chester into Hy-Tek's building in Fairfield.

Tumbas said his company moved out of Fairfield in September of 2001 "because the operation wasn't as successful as we needed it to be."

Commissioner Courtney Combs said local governments are hurt financially when businesses leave without fulfilling the terms of their tax-abatement agreements.

County Administrator Derek Conklin said the county has terminated tax-abatement agreements with companies that failed to provide the number of jobs they had promised. But he said the county has never tried to recover abated taxes from them.

The commissioners told Hardwick to find out if there are other businesses that have left the county without meeting the terms of their tax-abatement agreements.

E-mail skemme@enquirer.com