Bill No 22-23 Waiver of Noncompliance for Imagineering Finishing Technologies PP

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IMAGINEERINGr' �� ;��• joy FINISHING TECHNOLOGIES F. �TF.Cj The IuNuav Knurvlrr(SkcSnursr'"fur.11rial Finishing tiulutlm 1/eQ, . off ce Caleb Bauer C/� Oq�N\` fj�O1 ^' Deputy Executive Director C 11i Department of Community Investment FAl f 41 City of South Bend So(/ [FS (574)235-5898 F cbauer@southbendin.gov /N This letter serves to inform you of an omission on behalf of Imagineering Enterprises,Inc.During our annual self-audit,it came f to our attention that we have mistakenly omitted the submission of our Form 322 RE and 322 PP.Imagineering completed our Foundation Court passivation line on 1/31/2019 and our building expansion on 12/16/2019.Upon investigation,with assistance from Kruggel Lawton CPA,we have identified the cause of this omission,as explained below,and have generated a plan to promptly correct this issue. Imagineering had a change in CFO in 2018.The original CFO,Joseph Rowan,began the process of obtaining the abatements for Imagineering.The transition of the abatement status was not properly communicated to me-our current CFO.While we were knowledgeable of the abatements,we believed we were filing all the correct annual documents(CF-I RE and CF-I PP). We were not aware of Form 322 needing to be filed in 2020,upon the completion of our expansions. In addition,our prior CFO,Joseph Rowan,was filing our annual property tax returns.Upon my taking over the CFO role,we requested the services of Kruggel Lawton for our annual filings.We also experienced a change in our Kruggel Lawton representative.Through all this transition,everyone did their part to the best of their knowledge,however,we now know the required submission of Form 322 was not communicated to the pertinent parties. ;Y In 2020,Imagineering faced the challenges that many companies faced due to COVID 19.Our Accounting Manager,Lauren Eby,was pregnant at the time and given the opportunity to work remotely.Due to remote work and her being on maternity leave starting in late April of 2020,we did not have as strong of communication gateways in place before filing in May. Looking back,we could have internally communicated better and asked more questions regarding the abatements. Regarding the 2 projects listed above,the Foundation Court Passivation line was completed on 1/31/2019 at a total cost of $413,642 and the Foundation Court Building Expansion was completed on 12/16/2019 at a total cost of$1,841,111. Regarding our total employment at the Foundation Court facility,our average headcount for the first 4 months of 2022 was 88 full-time employees(which includes a few employees who moved from our other local facility to Foundation Court)with an average wage(combining hourly and salaried,direct and indirect employees)of$27.63 per hour.This compares to an average of 47 employees in 2018 with an average wage of$17.98 per hour,and 67 in 2019 with an average wage of$18.03 per hour. Not included in the 88 current employees,are 5 additional new hires scheduled to start during May`22 as well as 14 additional job ;y positions we have posted,but remain unfilled due largely to continued hiring challenges throughout Covid 19 pandemic and current labor shortage. In 2023,we are scheduled to take on a large new contract supporting a new American made all-electric w:.v truck—this program will fully utilize our new expanded footprint at our Foundation Court facility and is expected to result in at i` least 6 new full-time positions at Foundation Court,not including the new employees/positions mentioned already above. We appreciate you taking the time to consider our request to retroactively file for our abatements.Our goal is to correct our misfiling and maintain compliance. We continue to improve our processes to avoid mistakes like these in the future.If you feel it necessary to discuss this issue in-depth,we are happy to do so. Yours Truly, QN4ti Michael Seiler,CFO&EVP of Strategy r, mseiler@iftww.com 574-287-2941 Ext.723 ,I: