Corporate Welfare: The Empire Of The Pigs

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Then there was the local tax relief. For the 1996-97 fiscal year, Seaboard's Texas County tax bill totaled $1,118,000, according to John DeSpain, then county assessor. The state tax commission excused Seaboard from $700,000 of those taxes--on the grounds that the new hog farms and slaughterhouse qualified as "manufacturing." The state, in turn, sent Texas County that sum from a special fund. In short, all other Oklahoma taxpayers picked up 63% of Seaboard's tax bill.

There's more: the company didn't even want to pay all the remaining $418,000, so it appealed. It won, and the state agreed to absorb an additional $193,000. In other words, the state paid 78% of Seaboard's real estate taxes.

As for the 1997-98 fiscal year, DeSpain said, Seaboard's tax bill increased to $1,580,000. The company was immediately excused from paying $1,090,000 of that--again, money that all other Oklahoma taxpayers must pay. Once more, Seaboard was dissatisfied and appealed. And again, the state consented to pick up $226,000 more. The bottom line: Seaboard was obliged to come up with just 17% of the taxes owed.

It should be noted that Seaboard did agree early on to contribute $175,000 to the Guymon schools each year--on the grounds that the old plant it replaced in 1992 had been taxed that amount. Even with that donation, its payments fall far short of what the company really owes. And it doesn't come close to providing the schools with the revenue needed to pay for Seaboard's presence in the community. One might think that would discourage other school districts from negotiating similar agreements. One would be wrong.

In December 1997 Seaboard promised to pay $125,000 to the Keyes schools in Cimarron County, which adjoins Texas County to the west. The money would allow the school system to replace the wiring and reopen a shuttered elementary school. In turn, Keyes agreed it would not oppose company plans to build a feed mill and 400 barns to house an additional 400,000 hogs.

Besides ballooning school costs, Keyes also may look forward to another set of rising statistics: crime. From 1991 to 1997 in Guymon, serious crimes went up 61%. Larcenies increased 50%, assaults jumped 96%, and auto theft shot up 200%. Rapes went from none to five. And for the first time, youth gangs appeared on Guymon streets. A resident says that "some students have expressed fear of even going to the rest room in the high school."

HOG HEAVEN? TRY HOG HELL

In a way, Guymon is fortunate that it has little available housing. If it did, the social costs it is paying for Seaboard's presence would have been worse. As it is, Seaboard workers often must settle in distant areas, like Liberal, Kans., another meat-packing center and magnet for immigrant workers. When Seaboard proposed establishing a hog farm in Seward County, where Liberal is the largest community, residents voted 3 to 1 to block construction. Nevertheless, Kansas state officials reportedly have assured Seaboard that the referendum is not binding.