Even though Massachusetts appears to have broken even on its deal with Evergreen Solar, the company should still return some of the financial incentives it received from the state now that it has closed a factory that employed hundreds of workers, Gov. Deval Patrick said Thursday.
During his monthly radio appearance Thursday on WTKK-FM, Patrick was also critical of comments made earlier in the week by Michael El-Hillow, Evergreen’s chief executive. El-Hillow told a hearing of the Senate Post Audit and Oversight Committee that the company did not intend to pay back the more than $20 million in grants it received from the state to help build the plant in Devens.
Patrick said El-Hillow was not Evergreen’s CEO when the deal was struck with the state several years ago and was "completely out of the loop" on the negotiations.
"I haven’t met this new CEO, I heard what he said (to the committee) but he shouldn’t have said it," Patrick said.
El-Hillow was chairman of Evergreen’s board of directors when the deal was negotiated, according to Michael McCarthy, a company spokesman. El-Hillow later became chief financial officer and was named CEO in September 2010.
Patrick said the state would continue to seek "clawbacks" from Evergreen, a term used to describe repayments when a business that receives incentives does not live up to its end of the bargain. But he also acknowledged that the state probably didn’t lose money on the Evergreen deal.
"I would say the actual math of it suggests that the commonwealth just about broke even when you consider the income taxes on the payroll, but it’s still a blow and it’s not the commitment that they made," Patrick said.
In addition to about $20.8 million in grants, state officials said Evergreen was also the recipient of more than $10 million in tax and lease incentives.
McCarthy declined to comment directly on the governor’s comments Thursday, saying he wanted to first see a transcript of the remarks. But he reiterated comments made by El-Hillow to the committee on Tuesday, when the CEO said that despite the closing of the factory in January the company had met 85 percent of its commitments to the state in the first three years of the deal.
About half of the 800 employees that were laid off have since found new jobs, in part because of the training they received while working for Evergreen, El-Hillow added. (AP)
