WARREN, Ohio – Dave Frazier and his wife, Chris, started Charles Manufacturing Co. in his garage in 1982.

A Warren native and engineer, Frazier had a patent on a chimney part and was able to get a company in Massachusetts to partner in the sales of the product. What started as one sheet metal product expanded into a growing business that partnered with other businesses around the Mahoning Valley. Charles Manufacturing operated in a building on Dana Street before moving into a new commercial development area in 1993, where it started construction of a 10,000-square-foot building before the street, Sferra Avenue, was even built, Frazier said.

The company expanded again in 2004, adding an additional 20,000 square feet without asking for a tax abatement.

Now the company services 130 customers in northeastern Ohio with a variety of sheet metal parts, and both 2026 and 2027 are looking strong. Frazier said he needs to hire more engineers and accountants, which will mean four more full-time and two part-time employees with a proposed increase of payroll of $400,000. But his current office is tight on space, which is what led him to request an enterprise zone tax abatement. 

Trumbull County commissioners listened to presentations at Tuesday’s work session to learn more about Frazier’s project and determine if the requested 10-year, 75% tax abatement makes sense. 

Commissioners tabled the request at last week’s meeting, with Commissioner Denny Malloy questioning the size and scope of the project and whether the $250,000 investment should qualify for the abatement.

On Tuesday, Nick Coggins, assistant planning director, went over the founding of the enterprise zone agreement in Trumbull County in 1994 and let commissioners know it was set up countywide, including municipalities and townships, to promote the economic welfare of the county. Both retention and expansion has a large component, not just attraction of new development, Coggins said.

While current properties are not affected by the abatement, increases in taxes created by the construction would be.

“Fourteen of our current active abatements were expansions of existing companies,” Coggins said, adding several had prior abatements before the current ones.

Coggins said municipalities and townships have the power to negotiate with companies to reach an enterprise zone agreement. And in the past, when commissioners wanted to change the way the agreements were reached, several of the 30 communities participating in the enterprise zone saw it as a “power grab from the commissioners.”

“We can reach out to those communities again and see if their opinion has changed,” Coggins said. “But as it stands right now, they currently hold that power of negotiation.”

Malloy still questions why every business would not apply for an abatement if there are no parameters or rubrics stating how many new jobs or amount of expenses are required. He also reminded commissioners that they have heard from the school superintendents, asking them not to do anything to reduce property taxes when some of them are just hanging on.

Malloy suggested that commissioners should still look at revising the enterprise zone.

“We’re operating on a document from 1994 that the commissioners agreed to. Half those people are dead, and if we ran this county like we did in 1994, we would run it into the ground,” Malloy said. “So what I’m saying is we need to set some form of a unified policy and procedure moving forward.”

After hearing Frazier’s story, however, Malloy said he feels if he regularly had that type of information he would feel more comfortable voting on abatements.

Both Chairman Tony Bernard and Commissioner Rick Hernandez spoke favorably of the project and thanked Frazier for the investment he is planning to make in the community.

And while Hernandez said he would like to have more information every time, when the CEO or owner is not available, commissioners need to rely on the county employees and the municipalities that negotiate with businesses to gain reliable information, he said.

Mayor Doug Franklin said City Council already approved the enterprise agreement and asked commissioners to do the same.

Commissioners are slated to vote on the enterprise agreement as early as Wednesday.