By Gene Meyer
July, 30, 2010

(KansasReporter) TOPEKA, Kan. - Canadian aircraft giant Bombardier Inc. will receive $27 million in Kansas aid to help finance a more than $600 million expansion of its Wichita Learjet production facilities.

The offer is part of an agreement that Bombardier and Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson reached earlier this month and will result in the creation of about 300 new jobs, company officials and the governor said Friday in Wichita. Kansas' $27 million contribution is in addition to $600 million Bombardier is investing to expand production of its new Learjet 85. 

Kansas' share of the financing is to come from the sale of bonds which are to be repaid through withholding taxes from workers' paychecks that otherwise would go to the state's general fund. Kansas' State Finance Council, which includes Parkinson and the majority, minority and chief budget committee leaders of both houses of the state legislature, also must approve the financing.

Officials estimate that altogether, 600 workers of Bombardier's approximately 2,000-member Wichita workforce will work in a new paint facility, customer delivery center, production flight test facility and expanded Learjet 85 production hangars that are part of the expansion.

The potential full impact of the agreement was hard to assess Friday.

Wichita area aircraft workers, on average, make about $42,490 a year, said Jeremy Hill, executive director of Wichita State University's Center for Economic Development and Business Research. Each dollar of that income, on average, generates another $1.32 in further economic activity in the community, and each of the jobs leads to the creation of 3.4 more jobs in other businesses, Hill said.

But aircraft manufacturing, which once accounted for about one in five manufacturing jobs in Kansas, has been hit brutally by the recession. Aircraft workers in Wichita lost 11,700 jobs between October 2008 and last April, a nearly 28 percent slide from their pre-recession peak, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, believe they've already helped save 6,000 more jobs with a 10-year partnership agreement reached earlier this year with Spirit AeroSystems, even though the aircraft parts maker also is opening a plant in North Carolina, said Bob Woods, a union spokesman in Wichita.

Aircraft manufacturer Hawker Beechcraft, which employs about 2,400 Wichita workers, is considering a possible shift of some of its operations out of Kansas. Aircraft workers union members fear as many as 1,800 jobs could be lost, Woods said; company officials say no decision has been reached.

Cessna Aircraft Co. also headquartered in Wichita, currently has 6,100 employees there and 8,100 worldwide, down from as many as 15,000 a year and a half ago. The company is continuing to pare down outlying operations and move some of those operations to a plant in Mexico to cut costs, said company spokesman Doug Oliver.