Martinsville Bulletin, Inc.
P. O. Box 3711
204 Broad Street
Martinsville, Virginia 24115
276-638-8801
Toll Free: 800-234-6575
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Friday, March 3, 2006
By MATTHEW MCCORMICK - Bulletin Staff Writer
A call center contract that will bring about 77 new jobs to Martinsville and Henry County was announced Thursday by state and local officials.
Reston-based Tier Technologies Inc. received a $27.1 million contract to operate a child support enforcement customer services call center in Martinsville. The company plans to begin operations at the Commonwealth Centre in mid-May.
The contract, which is with the state Department of Social Services, runs through June 30, 2009, with four optional one-year renewals.
Speaking at the city council chambers Thursday afternoon, Nick Young, director of the Virginia Department of Social Services' Division of Child Support Enforcement, said the center was expected to provide child support information to more than 1.4 million callers each year.
To do so, Tier Chairman and CEO James Weaver said the company expects to invest $3.1 million in the operation and hire about 77 employees. They will be paid salaries ranging from $20,000 to $50,000, including benefits, he said.
"We have ads out for call center representatives as well as team leads and managers," said Weaver. "To the extent that we can find people that fit those requirements, we'd like to hire locally."
With a mature, qualified applicant pool, Weaver said he is confident he will find residents in Martinsville and Henry County who meet the company's requirements, which include having a high school diploma and customer service experience.
"When you're bringing in a new operation like this where you're going to hire 75, 80 people, knowing you have a good base to hire from is an important part of the project," he said. "We believed we could come in here and find a good, talented resource pool."
In addition to that talent, Tier will benefit from a combination of local and state incentives associated with Martinsville and Henry County's designation as an Enterprise Zone.
On the local level, the largest of those benefits is a grant that will reimburse the company for 100 percent of the real estate and machinery and tool taxes it will pay in its first year here and 50 percent of what it will pay for those taxes in the subsequent four years, said city Finance Director Wade Bartlett.
Weaver said that he is confident his company's presence in Martinsville will outlast those benefits, which run out after the sixth year.
Hopefully, he said, Tier not only will be able to extend and expand its contract with the Department of Social Services but also will be able to get call center contracts with other state agencies.
That would be a boon to the area, said Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corp. (EDC) Vice President Tom Harned, because the types of jobs Tier Technologies provides can help the area move away from its dependency on its traditional employment.
"We know they're going to be here next year and the year after and they give our citizens the opportunity to train and work in technology- and knowledge-based jobs," said Harned, who worked with the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) to help bring Tier to the area. "It's an excellent way to transition from textile and manufacturing jobs."
State officials said Thursday's announcement was a positive step not only for Martinsville and Henry County but for the state as a whole. The call center marks the first time the Division of Child Support Enforcement has looked to a private company for help in providing information and customer services to Virginia residents.
By doing so, the state hopes to leverage Tier's state-of-the art technology to add to the $560 million in child support it collects each year, an important task considering that a quarter of the commonwealth's children are affected by child support payments, said Henry County native and Secretary of Health and Human Resources Marilyn Tavenner.
"By privatizing with Tier, we have the opportunity for folks to focus on what they're best at," Tavenner said.
After more than 10 years in the business, Weaver said that his company is one of the best when it comes to child support services.
"The company has an extensive amount of child support experience," said Weaver, "and some of the best child support experts, I believe, in the country."
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