A public hearing was held inside the Madison State Capitol building on Wednesday for the Joint Committee on Finance to discuss and raise questions about a $100 million tax incentive package for Kimberly-Clark.

The company, which makes hygiene products such as Kleenex, Cottonelle, Huggies, Depend, and more, announced that it was planning to close its plants in Fox Crossing and Neenah as part of its global restructuring plan to stay profitable. 

The Neenah location is no longer a part of the discussion, but the debate over keeping the Fox Crossing plant open is still on the table. 

If Kimberly-Clark closed its Fox Crossing plant, it would move that workload down to its plant in Conway, Arkansas, but leave hundreds of Wisconsinites without a job that has a salary median of about $72,000. 

Some state senators and representatives had tough questions for the company, asking why it would need so much taxpayer money from the state to stay in Wisconsin when the company is already profitable and benefited from a corporate tax cut from the Trump administration this year.

“Some of my concerns about this proposal is this company is already incredibly profitable,” State Representative Chris Taylor (D – Wisconsin) said. “They made $3.3 billion last year. They don’t pay any state income tax, they just got a huge windfall from a federal tax cut. They gave about $900 million back to their shareholders. So the questions that I was asking is do you need more money from the state?”

State Senator Roger Roth (R-Appleton), who co-sponsored this bill, acknowledged that Kimberly-Clark is profitable, but said that he wants to keep the jobs in the state and believes that the company will invest more into Fox Crossing in the coming years.

“The good news is, Kimberly-Clark is a profitable company, and taxpayers would not want us at the state level to be investing into companies that were failing,” Roth said. ” And that’s not Kimberly-Clark. They’re very profitable, they’re going through a global restructuring. The question is, they’re looking over the next 15 years to put a potential billion and a half dollars of investment in the Fox Valley, making this the central hub for production, manufacturing and distribution of adult incontinence products which are only going to grow in demand as our baby boomers age into retirement. The question for us is, do we want that here, or do we want that investment to go to another state.”

Roth’s statement needs clarification because in actuality, Kimberly-Clark would not invest $1.5 billion into a plant in Arkansas or another state if it closed its Wisconsin plant. Kimberly-Clark says it would invest up to $500 million in the Fox Crossing facility if it stays, but that figure does not apply to the plant in Arkansas. Roth’s $1.5 billion figure came from the way he factored in other investments the company makes, such as paying workers and investing money around the community every year.

State representative Taylor questions why Kimberly-Clark needs this tax incentive package.

“We heard today that the union made a lot of concessions,” Taylor said. “The workers have done everything possible to keep these jobs here. It’s a very productive plant. We have the hardest workers in the nation if not the world here in Wisconsin, and so we’re really trying to get at, well what do you need and what are the end goals here, because $3.3 billion in profit is pretty darn good.”

The State Assembly has passed the tax incentive package for Kimberly-Clark. It has not made it through the State Senate yet because it has not had enough support among senators. The State Senate may take the bill up after Thanksgiving.