FREDERICKTOWN — “I know this is tough, and hard on the community,” said Michael Del Chiaro, senior vice president of Ward/Kraft. By June 2, the Fredericktown facility which employs approximately 80 people, will close.
According to Del Chiaro, 10 customer service and sales employees will keep their jobs, moving to a new location at 309 S. Main St., in downtown Mount Vernon. The sales team will be moved to the new location by May 1, once renovation work at the new location is completed.
Del Chiaro said the Fredericktown employees are doing an “incredible job” with helping the company transition its operations to the company headquarters in Kansas. Some are traveling to Kansas every week to work Monday through Friday on the transition. Del Chiaro said these employees could continue to do so through the end of the year.
The layoffs at the Fredericktown plant, which manufactures labels, envelopes and forms, are happening in phases, according to the company. Sonja Overholt of Fredericktown, who worked at the Fredericktown plant for over 24 years, said the first phase of layoffs was scheduled to be completed by May 2. Overholt, who until April 14 served as the Fredericktown plant’s senior accountant, left her position for a job at Kenyon College. She had been at the plant the longest of any employee, and said Ward/Kraft’s decision to close the Fredericktown facility and move operations to Kansas took employees by surprise.
“We were told at a plantwide meeting on Feb. 6. Our general manager announced it. I’ll never forget that day. We’d been busy, and had one of our best years in our forms division in 2005, so it was kind of shocking that they wanted to shut us down,” Overholt said. Since that announcement, Overholt estimates that 35 to 40 percent of the Fredericktown employees have left voluntarily, as they’ve located jobs elsewhere.
Del Chiaro said the company is trying to ease the layoff for the employees “compassionately, and with as much business sense as we can operate.” Employees have been offered a retention bonus that Del Chiaro describes as “pretty hefty,” if they remain until the transition is complete. He said with the generous profitsharing all of the employees will be given, whether or not they stay through the final plant closing, Ward/Kraft will have paid out several million dollars to the Fredericktown employees when the final plant closing happens June 2.
Current employees were not able to grant interviews on the instruction of Ward/Kraft’s corporate office. Many cited concerns over losing their severance packages as reasons for not speaking to the News until the plant closing is complete.
As plans for the closing are finalized, the community in Fredericktown is preparing for the change. Mayor Roger Reed said the loss of 80 jobs, and the loss of tax revenue from the Ward/Kraft plant, will be felt deeply by the village. Reed said he is sorry to see the company leave.
“We really felt they were a part of the community. They were a good employer and they certainly had good employees,” he said.
Reed said he is disappointed the company will not keep the remaining Ohio sales staff in Fredericktown.
“I would be interested in knowing why they didn’t at least contact myself or area development about available space in Fredericktown,” he said. “Why would they have their employees from Fredericktown start commuting to Mount Vernon?”
Reed added that he is more concerned about the people who are now searching for jobs at a time when jobs are scarce than he is about the economic impact the closing will have on the village.
Village Fiscal Officer Ray Davis estimated the village will lose between $30,000 and $40,000 a year in municipal income and tax revenue.
“That money is part of the general fund of the village,” he said. “It is used to support police protection, snow removal, leaf pickup and street lighting, among other services.”
He said the village is looking ahead at changes that will have to be made to the budget, knowing this money will not be available next year, and possibly the next several years. He said belt tightening is already under way.
Reed is confident another business will move into the Ward/Kraft facility, bringing new jobs to the village. Del Chiaro said the building, which was built in 1980, will eventually be sold. He is unsure of when that will happen.
Overholt said leaving the plant was harder than she imagined.
“We had a great staff there, a great general manager, great people,” she said. “That job was all my family and I knew. I worked there before I was married, before I had kids.”
The remaining employees will be laid off during the month of May. Del Chiaro said the company expects to end all plant operations in Fredericktown over the next few weeks.