TRUMBULL COUNTY Officials to OK tax break

The move will create five full-time jobs and a part-time job.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Trumbull County commissioners were expected to approve a tax abatement this morning for a $600,000 expansion of Quality Switches in Newton Falls.
On Monday, Newton Falls Council approved forgiving 75 percent of real and personal property taxes on the expansion for 10 years. Quality Switches plans to put on an addition at the rear of its Arlington Road facility.
"We have got some new work orders in and we are kind of busting at the seams," said Russell Sewell of Leavittsburg, who owns Quality Switches with his brother Rickye. "We need space for new equipment and inventory."
The tax abatement covers $250,000 for building construction, $200,000 for new machinery and $150,000 for additional inventory.
In applying for the abatement, Quality Switches pledged to hire five additional full-time workers and one part-timer in the next three years.
The expansion was prompted by a contract with General Electric, expected to last for three to five years, to supply large switches for transformers, Sewell said.
Good business: Sales at Quality Switches have increased by 30 percent over the last several years, hitting nearly $3 million in 2000. "We are lucky. We are a niche-type of business and the transformer business is steady," he said.
Quality Switches, a 1974 spinoff of Quality Machines, also of Newton Falls, makes switches -- some as long as 12 feet -- for transformers in power transmission lines and stations.
Demand extends beyond the United States to Mexico and Latin American countries seeking to upgrade their electrical infrastructure, Sewell said.
Quality Switches has 31 full-time employees and one part-timer. Additional employees hired as part of the expansion will include an engineer, who will earn between $30,000 and $40,000 per year, and four assemblers and machinists, who will make between $9 and $11 per hour.