Topship not a good deal for Mississippi taxpayers

The proposed Topship “deal” where the state of Mississippi, Harrison County and the Port of Gulfport give away your tax dollars to a private business is a bad deal for all taxpayers. Let’s review this “project.”

You, the taxpayer, are on one side with public money, and on the other side is a company by the name of Topship, which is owned by the wealthy Chouest family from Louisiana. The state and the other Mississippi agencies are giving the Chouests $36 million in cash and untold free tax exemptions.

The specifics of the Memorandum of Authority are that the state gives Topship $11 million, the state gives Topship an exemption from state income tax for 20 years, free franchise tax exemption of $25,000 annually for 20 years and an exemption from sales and use taxes for purchases made for the project.

Additionally, your Port of Gulfport is handing over to Topship/Chouest $25 million of federal funds that were supposed to aid those in need of help as a result of Hurricane Katrina and a sweetheart land lease from the port.

The state gets back a supposed 1,000 jobs that are to occur over six years and pay “at least” $40,000 per year.

But this same group promised this same deal to the state of Louisiana in a similar incentive deal some years ago. Instead of $40,000 jobs, they promised Louisiana $50,000 jobs.

I guess our workforce is just worth less. But there is an additional problem. They did not make the deadline to hire those promised and have been in negotiations with Louisiana for an extension to comply. Yet in the midst of this failure, our governor does the same deal with the same people. If they cannot live up to the deal they made in Louisiana for jobs that they promised there, how can anyone legitimately expect they will do so in Mississippi.

Another troubling aspect of these promised incentives is that it is a gamble on the recovery of the offshore oil exploration industry.

I hope the governor has noticed that the industry is in the middle of a huge depression. In fact, a trip over to the Industrial Seaway, where Topship and other offshore supply boat operators are located, will show scores of vessels tied up in mothballs because there is no work nor any work on the horizon for the foreseeable future.

So the governor is making a bet that he knows best that this industry is going to bounce back from the present slump. Problem is, he is betting with your money.

A bigger problem is with the structure of the deal. Cash will actually be passing into the hands of these folks. From you and me to them. They will not have to pay taxes for a long period of time. Neither you nor I were offered a freebie like this. In essence, we are subsidizing a private company with public monies. If they prosper, they keep our cash.

However, one of the worst aspects of this “deal” is the role of the Port of Gulfport. The port has attempted to reinvent itself from an international port to a back-of-town landlord. This deal is nothing more than the port going out and taking Ingalls out of a bad land deal and buying property to “lease” to Chouest/Topship. It has nothing to do with maritime commerce, cargo, goods, shipping or longshoremen. The only thing this company does is to build offshore supply vessels, which do not advance the business of the port.

In fact the “lease” is structured as such so that Topship does not have to pay the same property taxes that we pay. Since they don’t have to buy it until the end of the lease for a dollar, they avoid paying taxes. Slick. But it is slick at our expense and with the full knowledge of the state and the government agencies.

The port only did this deal so they could get rid of the Katrina HUD money — money that should have been invested for a true international maritime purpose and not for a landlord lease purchase.

Maybe at some point our state will stand up to the governor, the Mississippi Development Agency, the Harrison County supervisors and others and say we are sick of these types of giveaways. We are not a third-world country.

To the port, state and Board of Supervisors , I ask that you stop the deal with Topship and become accountable to those who support you.

This story was originally published July 13, 2016 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Topship not a good deal for Mississippi taxpayers."