Despite the claims of Waynesboro leaders that the city’s deal with Northrop Grumman will provide 331 jobs, job creation does not appear to have been a priority.
The performance agreement, or contract made between Waynesboro and Northrop Grumman, a copy of which I obtained through a public-records request, looks more like a vague agreement made in haste without a solid commitment to job creation.
Instead, the contract is focused primarily on taxing real estate and equipment while at the same time giving significant tax kickbacks to the company. So, in short, the city taxes property and capital investment for potential revenue, and then, poof! They give most of it back.
In the sliding scale provided in the agreement, the city only begins to get a little more tax revenue beginning in 2034, where they go from reimbursing Northrop Grumman 100 percent minus the baseline real property tax in 2026 to 50 percent by 2034 (similar scenario for equipment tax). And even here, the revenue is meager for the city, less than $150K for property tax (in 2026 we get a whopping estimated $16,663!) — not a big win for us as it is being touted — and a tiny drop in the bucket for a multibillion-dollar company like Northrop Grumman, which could afford to pay full taxes to the city and not miss a dime.
This agreement is all about supposed incentives, flimsy ones at that, and not requirements. There are no strong conditions that must be met. The city says only that it will give a $200K rebate if Northrop Grumman creates 331 jobs. This seems anything but a great incentive (and far from a requirement) for a company like Northrop Grumman, which is worth over $70 billion. It makes me wonder if the city and Northrop Grumman needed some number to market it to the public and settled on that one.
Moreover, this performance agreement provides no outline or breakdown of the specific jobs/areas included in that number, with salary estimates for each. The contract only states vaguely that Northrop Grumman “plans to employ by 2028, 331 full-time employees with an average wage of $93,942.” How did they come up with that average? This is more than 90 percent higher than the average median household income for Waynesboro, which is $51,060 (see Neilsburg.com).
The reason we must see a breakdown of the anticipated jobs at all levels and their salaries, details that any transparent agreement should provide, is because that average certainly includes salaries that range from executives and high-level employees to general workers. This means that a majority of Northrop Grumman employees will be making significantly less than that average. By all appearances, Northrop Grumman and Waynesboro are gaming their numbers rather than being realistic or honest.
Perhaps most concerning is that there are no strong requirements or guarantees that most of those 331 jobs — pretending with more than a wink that that number is accurate — will go to local residents. No guarantee. We do not even know what these jobs will require or entail because this agreement does not tell us. Many of these jobs may very well be filled by a more highly technical workforce from outside of Waynesboro.
Also missing from the agreement is any mention of a commitment to do an environmental site assessment to ensure that environmental impacts are taken into consideration. Shouldn’t this be done before any groundbreaking for Northrop Grumman? In 2022, the company was required to pay $35 million for environmental cleanup costs for polluting the land and water in and around Bethpage, New York. How can we trust that they will keep our living space safe?
It seems that this performance agreement between Northrop Grumman and Waynesboro speaks loudly not only for its unsubstantiated claims but for what it doesn’t say or address. Thus, without a serious effort to be transparent and honest, it is difficult to trust that this company will be much of an economic benefit to our community or even safe for our community.
Finally, as I stressed in my first essay on Northrop Grumman and Waynesboro, even if there was an economic benefit, human lives and well-being should matter more than dollars. Northrop Grumman contributes to flooding the world with deadly weapons. Its purpose and profits, like others in their industry, are driven and dependent on war and conflict — on the killing of other human beings, on the destruction and destabilization of their communities, on the brutalization and suffering of millions. The logical extension of many of the products they manufacture is harm and death and the violation of human rights.
If the moral or ethical issue of a killing corporation in our backyard doesn’t move you because you see dollars, what will your reason be as those dollars slip through the holes in this agreement?
Nick Patler resides in Waynesboro.
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