58 jobs may result from Golden Living expansion

The around 200 jobs Dallas-based Golden Living will move to its administrative center in Fort Smith during the next two years will generate at least 58 more jobs in the region, according to analysis from Senior Research Economist Gregory Hamilton at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Officials with the company, which has more than 42,000 employees and provides nursing, rehab, hospice and other senior-care services, announced March 30 they would consolidate regional admin operations in Fort Smith. The jobs, to come from company offices in Atlanta, Birmingham, Ala., Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Richmond, Va., are expected to boost administrative center employment to 875.

The jobs will consolidate most of the company’s billing for its various subsidiaries in the 5-story, 318,000-square-foot Fort Smith building. The building was once the corporate headquarters for Golden Living, but the company announced in early March it would move 10-15 executives to a new corporate home in Plano, Texas (Dallas).

Hamilton’s analysis assumes that all the Golden Living jobs will have an average wage of $18 per hour, or $37,440 annually. That was the amount announced by Golden Living for hourly workers, but the company did not provide data on salaried pay.

Based on that assumption, the 200 Golden Living jobs — which will generate at least $7.488 million in annual payroll — will create 58 jobs in the region, with added labor income from those jobs totaling $1.942 million.

Of the estimated $7.488 million in payroll from the 200 jobs, roughly $6.6 million will be spent in such a way that it results in the 58 new jobs. Hamilton’s calculations only estimate the impact in the Arkansas portion of the metro area.

The Golden Living jobs also will result in an estimated $169,908 boost in property tax revenue, and an estimated $223,107 in sales tax collections.

A more than $1.5 million incentive package from the Arkansas Governor’s office and the Arkansas Economic Development Commission and a smaller incentive — $25,000 in the first installment, with other installments made when jobs are added — from the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce helped secure the jobs.

Golden Living is owned by the Washington State Department of Retirement Systems. San Francisco-based Fillmore Capital Partners (Fillmore Strategic Investors) is the managing agent for the retirement system. As of June 30, 2010, the value of the WSDRS investment in Golden Living (Fillmore Strategic Investors) was $1.121 billion, or 1.83% of all investments owned by the system.