The Jefferson County Commission moved to Thursday’s agenda a request for a tax abatement from U.S. Steel’s Fairfield Works.

Speaking Tuesday at the commission’s committee meeting, Paul Vercher, U.S. Steel’s senior director of state government affairs, said the company’s recent merger with Nippon Steel lifted it from the 24^th-largest steelmaker in the world to the fourth-largest steelmaker in the world.

“With that came some extra money for investments that can help streamline our operations and make them more efficient,” Vercher said. “What that means for Fairfield is we’ve announced $500 million of investment in the state of Alabama that we can use for projects that would benefit our mill here in Alabama. These projects don’t have to go to Fairfield, but we would like them to go to Fairfield.”

The first project involves a premium threading line first announced last November.

“The premium threading line, basically we make oil … pipes here in Birmingham. It comes out of our operations as just a pipe and what we need to have is threads on those pipes so they can couple them and use them for oil exploration and other things. So that’s what we (are) actually doing here in Alabama. We have that operation currently in Arkansas. It would be more efficient for us to do that somewhere closer to where the pipe is actually made here in Alabama.”

U.S. Steel is seeking an abatement of noneducation sales and use taxes during the construction phase and a 10-year abatement of noneducation property taxes. The company is investing $70,469,000 in the manufacturing and assembly of steel products using premium threading line equipment.

The planned facility will have 44 employees with estimated average wages of $57.91 per hour. Jefferson County has an anticipated return of investment of $875,175 to the general fund and $5,505,958 to the education fund.

“The entire commission is behind U.S. Steel and behind any project that you choose to bring to us,” Commission President Jimmie Stephens said. “We want to be a good host/partner for you (and) with you to make sure that happens.”

Probate Court Begins Record Retention Project

Also going to the agenda of Thursday’s meeting is a memo of understanding with the Jefferson County Probate Court and a contract for renovations related to the new vertical file storage installation project. The budgeted amount of $545,500 drew questions from commissioners.

“There’s a records retention law that requires those records to be permanently preserved,” Deputy County Manager Heather Carter said. Carter cited the “Handbook for Probate Judges,” which said, “The judge of probate is required to preserve all documents, files, papers, and letters, together with all attachments required by law to be recorded and filed in his office. These records must be kept in a manner to permit convenient reference.”