Michigan taxpayers gave General Motors $600 million to create thousands of jobs at an Ultium Cells battery plant near Lansing, now they’re waiting to see if a South Korean company fulfills that obligation.

GM announced earlier this month it’s backing out of the joint venture with LG Energy Solution that was funded in part by the largest taxpayer incentive package in state history, but neglected to mention it already pocketed the cash.

“State records obtained by The Detroit News indicate the entire performance-based grant was paid out by the Michigan Treasury Department to GM and its partner in an EV battery plant between June and September 2023, more than a year before the Detroit automaker announced Dec. 2 that it would sell its stake in the Lansing area battery plant that had received part of the grant,” the news site reports.

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The 2022 incentive package, the first approved through a newly created Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve fund run by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, paid out a record $666 million for the Ultium Cells plant and to transition GM’s Orion Township assembly plant to produce all-electric pickups.

The Lansing Economic Area Partnership got $66 million of the grant to help with site preparation, $480 million went to the Orion Township plant, and $120 million was earmarked for Ultium Cells.

The agreement was predicated on GM’s promise to invest about $4 billion in Orion Township and $2.5 billion in Ultium Cells, and create about 3,200 jobs – 1,840 in Orion Township and 1,360 at the Ultium Cells plant.

The Michigan Treasury paid out the $120 million for Ultium Cells in July 2023. Through Dec. 2, GM reported it had created 100 jobs at Ultium Cells and invested $1.04 billion in the facility, although the company plans to recoup about $1 billion when it sells its stake to LG.

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GM delayed its commitments in Orion Township, pushing its plans back by a year.

“As a legislator and an appropriator, it’s our job to provide oversight of money belonging to the hard-working taxpayer, and I don’t think that was fulfilled by this payment,” state Sen. Mark Huizenga, R-Walker, told The News.

Huizenga requested additional information about the grant from MEDC, concerned the economic development agreements it oversees lack provisions to prevent divestment.

“You have to wonder, did General Motors make an investment here and then just give that to the South Koreans?” Huizenga questioned. “The spirit of how this concluded to me, as an appropriator, feels like a bait and switch. The department may dispute that, but that’s not how it was presented to us at all.”

MEDC officials told The News GM remains in compliance with the grant terms, while MEDC CEO Quentin Messer told Huizenga the agency has upgraded protections in agreements run through the Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve fund’s Critical Industry Program.

“Subsequent updates made to the CIP agreements include an investment commitment in addition to a required jobs commitment and a project completion milestone that requires satisfaction of the investment and jobs commitments before the final disbursement of funds,” Messer wrote in a letter to Huizenga.

Michigan House Speaker-elect Rep. Matt Hall, R-Richland Twp., blasted GM’s announcement the company is backing out of its commitments for Ultium Cells earlier this month, noting it’s one of several ways one of the state’s largest employers is taking advantage of taxpayers.

“General Motors is demonstrating, once again, a troubling pattern of fleecing Michigan taxpayers and workers,” Hall said. “Cutting a side deal to pull out of Michigan and keeping taxpayer money is egregious, especially as they continue to kill family sustaining jobs in the process and seek taxpayer support to redevelop the Renaissance Center.”

In November, GM laid off 1,000 employees, including 507 salaried and hourly employees at its Global Technology Center in Warren amid waning interest in EVs. A few weeks later, GM unveiled a $1.6 billion plan to renovate three of five Renaissance Center towers it co-owns with billionaire Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock Detroit development firm that assumes taxpayers will cover $250 million.

After several state lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle balked at the $250 million ask, GM officials threatened to tear down all five towers at the Renaissance Center if the project doesn’t secure taxpayer support.

GM’s SOAR grant is only the latest from MDEC to face scrutiny for failing to live up to expectations.

A Bridge Michigan analysis in June found that with the first $1 billion in SOAR grants distributed to create a promised 12,000 jobs, only 200 jobs had materialized.

“News headlines frequently tout the promise of new jobs, but rarely report when the programs fail to deliver on their promises,” said James Hohman, director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and author of a new study on two decades of broken promises tied to taxpayer-funded business incentives.

“This creates a misunderstanding among the public that job announcements are the same thing as actual jobs created,” he said. “Yet lawmakers continue to rubber-stamp these ineffective and costly deals.”

The Mackinac Center study, titled Front Line Failures, found just 9% of the jobs announced in major state-sponsored deals from 2000 to 2020 were ever created. That equates to one job produced for every 11 promised.

“We should be investigating what the MEDC has been doing the last several years and really open the doors on how this money has been spent and how these deals are put together,” state Rep. Dylan Wegela, D-Garden City, told The News. “That’s what I’d like to see from Speaker-elect (Matt) Hall, is to put together a committee to look into what they’re doing.”

“Because if we’re giving corporations the full amount of these grants before they’ve done a single thing, that’s a problem,” he said. “And I think most people in Michigan would agree.”