Clay residents split on Micron getting $2 billion break on sales, property taxes

Syracuse, N.Y. ― Clay residents were split tonight on whether Micron Technology should be granted a $2 billion break on sales and property taxes.

Some argued that Micron is already getting more than $22 billion in taxpayer subsidies and doesn’t need more. Others said that the sales and property tax breaks were a small price to pay for the tens of thousands of jobs promised by Micron’s planned chipmaking complex in Clay.

“Fifty-thousand people will be earning money that are not earning that money now,” resident Jim Nash told representatives of the Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency. “They’re going to be paying property tax, they’re going to be paying sales taxes. And I think that we’ve got to consider that.”

Other residents objected to the length of Micron’s property tax deal — 49 years — and to OCIDA’s estimates that Micron will get a $284 million discount on its bill for town, county and school taxes.

“The school district is going to be losing funds,” said resident Darlene Piper. “Who’s going to support that funding? The taxpayers, which are us.”

About 75 people attended the two-hour hearing at the Clay Town Hall.

The hearing was held on the agency’s plan to give Micron Technology about $2 billion in breaks on sales and property taxes. Of that $2 billion, about $1.76 billion is an exemption from state and local sales taxes on construction materials. The property tax savings would be about $284 million.

Those breaks are in addition to the $22.6 billion in subsidies that Micron is already slated to receive from the state and federal governments to build two chipmaking factories in Clay.

Without the promised tax breaks, Central New York could never have landed Micron, which could spend $100 billion and employ 9,000 people, said Onondaga County Legislator Cody Kelly.

“It’s simply not realistic to say that Micron was ever going to pay an additional $284 million in property tax,” Kelly said. “Without this agreement, this project does not happen here. It would end up in Phoenix or Austin, but it wouldn’t be in Clay.”

Taxpayers would subsidize about half of the $51.5 billion Micron says it will spend to build and equip the first two factories. Those plants will be built over the next eight years, with the first chips produced in 2030.

Micron posted a record $8.54 billion in profits in its fiscal 2025 year, which ended in August.

Instead of property taxes, Micron would make payments totaling $84.5 million over 49 years. Without the tax deal, Micron’s local property tax bill would come to $368.4 million during the same period, OCIDA says.

The county’s calculations mask the true size of the property tax break Micron is getting, which is likely much larger.

A separate, shorter public hearing was held tonight on a request from Micron for a $394,310 break on property taxes on a related project, a rail spur across Caughdenoy Road from the factory site. Micron says it will use rail cars rather than trucks to haul in millions of cubic yards of stone that will level the swampy, low-lying site.

Micron says it plans to start clearing the land for the factories and rail spur by the end of the year. Nothing can move forward, however, until the development agency finishes and approves the 20,000-page environmental report.

OCIDA is expected to approve that report Friday morning. The agency will hold a meeting at 8:30 a.m. in the Onondaga County Legislative Chambers, room 407 of the courthouse at 401 Montgomery St.

Micron says the first factory would start producing chips in 2030 and the second in 2033.