tool name

Tuesday, Jun. 23, 2009

Education-services company in Pulaski will add 200 jobs

SOMERSET — An education-services company in Pulaski County will expand its facility and add about 200 jobs, state officials announced Monday.

Presidium Inc. currently employs 250 at its office in rural Pulaski County, according to a news release from the state Economic Development Cabinet.

"During these hard economic times, it is exciting to have an expansion project taking place in our community," Pulaski County Judge-Executive Barty Bullock said in the release.

Presidium projected that the average wage for the new jobs would be $10.88 an hour, but it estimated that the range would be $8 to $35 an hour, according to a project summary presented to the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority.

The authority gave Presidium preliminary approval for as much as $4.1 million in incentives for the expansion project.

Under the program, the company can get a credit against its state taxes and keep part of what the new employees would otherwise have paid in state income taxes and a local payroll tax.

Presidium provides information-technology services to more than 600 colleges, elementary and high schools, and companies, the cabinet said.

The company's Pulaski County location functions as a call-center help desk. For instance, students from Presidium customers can contact the center for help with registration, financial aid and other issues, even when campus offices are closed, according to the company Web site.

The company calls what it does "education services management." It was among the 500 fastest-growing private companies in the United States last year according to one ranking, Presidium said.

The company is based in suburban Washington, D.C. The Pulaski County center is the only other location listed on its Web site.

Presidium plans to invest $8.3 million to expand its Pulaski County facility and to lease additional space, according to the state project summary.

It can recoup as much as half that amount under a state incentive program designed to attract and keep technology-related jobs.

The state approved Presidium for an incentive of $1 million in 2006.

Presidium already has started hiring the new workers, said Martin Shearer, executive director of the Somerset-Pulaski County Development Foundation.

In local advertisements, the company said it needs workers because it has gotten new business.

"It's good that we have businesses that are growing here in Somerset and Pulaski County," Shearer said.

Presidium chief executive Greg Davies did not respond to a telephone message at his Virginia office but said in the state news release that the company had been overwhelmed by its rapid success in Kentucky.