NCO to Get $2 million in State Money for Missouri Call Center

Accounts receivable management and business process outsourcing giant NCO Group has been approved for $1.3 million in job creation tax credits in the state of Missouri for a call center it plans to expand, according to an announcement Tuesday from the state’s governor, Matt Blunt. The company will also receive $650,000 for training.

Horsham, Pa.-based NCO Group announced earlier this month that it would be expanding a call center in a former Wal-Mart store in Joplin, Mo. (“NCO Group to Expand in Missouri on Best Buy Contract,” May 13). The call center will house a customer relationship management (CRM) team for one of NCO’s major clients, electronics retailer Best Buy.

NCO is planning to add 350 jobs at the call center in the next year and will add another 300 by the end of 2009 if demand warrants. The jobs will have an average annual salary of $21,000, according to the governor’s office.

Blunt’s announcement said that the $1.3 million in state tax credits will be stretched over the next five years. Local paper The Joplin Globe reported that NCO will also receive an additional $650,000 in state employee training funds, contingent on hiring and retaining the initial batch of 350 workers.

According to the governor’s announcement, NCO is investing $1 million in the facility. The office came into NCO’s possession after its purchase of Systems and Services Technologies (SST), a front-end loan servicer and collection agency, last year (“NCO Group Acquires Loan Servicing Firm,” Aug. 31, 2007). SST is based in St. Joseph, Mo.

Earlier in May, Brian Callahan, NCO’s vice president of financial reporting, told insideARM that the SST work will continue in the facility but will be kept separate from NCO’s CRM work for Best Buy.

Joplin’s economy has been hit hard in recent years, according to both Callahan and Blunt. The state tax credits are part of Blunt’s Enhanced Enterprise Zone program implemented in 2004 to bring new jobs to the area and to the state. So far, the governor said that 22,000 new jobs have been created in Missouri.