Liam Beran
The Assembly Committee on Local Governments, photographed April 9.
Rep. Todd Novak, chair of the Assembly Committee on Local Government, says there is a non-disclosure agreement on the negotiations with a large Middleton employer.
A bipartisan coalition of state legislators is working to pass a tax incentive measure intended to keep a large employer in Middleton. But they’re unwilling to name the company seeking the tax incentive.
The bill, which was approved unanimously by the Assembly Committee on Local Government Wednesday with no discussion, has already passed in a corresponding Senate committee and may soon head to both floors of the state Legislature.
Rep. Todd Novak, R-Dodgeville, said at Wednesday’s hearing that the involved parties have a non-disclosure agreement that prohibits legislators from naming the business. Reporting from Madison television station WKOW indicates the company is Thermo Fisher Scientific, a biomedical company, and that the company initiated conversations regarding the incentive with the city of Middleton. Thermo Fisher is the largest employer in Middleton.
“The economic ripple effect of losing those jobs would be substantial, not just for Middleton but for the county and the state,” Middleton Mayor Emily Kuhn told the Assembly committee when the bill was brought before it on March 19. Around 1,800 jobs would be lost were the company to move, which Kuhn estimated would cause an economic loss of around $8 million annually. She also said “East Coast states” are attempting to lure the company, whose Middleton facility does research and analytics on clients’ pharmaceuticals.
In an interview, Kuhn tells Isthmus the company, which she was unwilling to identify as Thermo Fisher, approached her about a year ago to discuss consolidating its Middleton operations “to one location, or closer together, because they have a few different spots.”
Kuhn at the time told the company that the city would likely look at infill — redeveloping already developed, often “underutilized” land — to open up new lots for expansion, and mentioned a tax incremental district as an option. A tax-increment district, or TID, is a financial tool that allows municipalities to use property tax growth in an area to finance improvements to the district or a developers’ project.
The total value of a municipality’s TIDs cannot exceed 12% of the municipality’s total property-tax-eligible properties. But Middleton already has three large TIDs, and cannot create a new one without exceeding the 12% limit. This is where the state Legislature’s potential exemption comes in. Kuhn said at the March 19 committee meeting that the city plans to close a TID soon after creating this new one, bringing total value below the 12% cap, but she stressed then that quick action is needed to keep the employer in the area.
In late 2024, Kuhn tells Isthmus, the company approached state Sen. Dianne Hesselbein, D-Middleton, with a similar ask. Hesselbein informed Kuhn of the ongoing discussions.
Kuhn is behind a collaborative effort: “I asked [Hesselbein] to take the lead on keeping all stakeholders informed and working directly with the business and having the case file running because of that timeline and because we have to run [tax increment financing] through the city.”
Kuhn says she is “uncertain” why the negotiations necessitate an NDA, and that Hesselbein’s office “likely took the lead” on negotiating that agreement. Hesselbein did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tom Kamenick, an attorney and founder of government transparency law firm the Wisconsin Transparency Project, says NDAs between developers and legislative bodies are legal and common — many developers expect that if they do business in Wisconsin, they’ll be able to do so secretly, allowing them to compare offers without tipping their hands.
But, “as a policy matter, I don't like them,” Kamenick says. “I don't think that's good service to your constituents, to just agree not to share any information about [the developer], about what you're being told.”
Yet he says many government officials have a refrain: “If we don't play by their rules, they'll go somewhere else.”
The Senate Committee on Government Operations, Labor and Economic Development has already passed the bill 4-1. It has not yet been scheduled for a vote in the Senate.
Thermo Fisher did not respond to a request for comment.
