MUNCIE — A little more than a year after Gov. Mike Pence and local officials gathered at a Muncie company to announce hundreds of jobs would be created, the company has asked employees to name their own pay cuts in an effort to stay in business.
ASONS, a Muncie-based construction and property management company, attributed recent financial troubles to "mismanagement" and "overpriced employees" and asked its 100-plus workers to take voluntary pay cuts of 15 percent or more in some cases.
Workers and former workers at ASONS contacted The Star Press about the financial problems for the company, which was touted as an up-and-coming firm in 2015, when it moved operations from Riggin Road to the former Wilson Middle School on South Tillotson Avenue.
The move was overseen by city officials and the Muncie Redevelopment Commission, who brokered the deal between ASONS and Muncie Community Schools that saw the school corporation paid $2 million for the former school, which hadn't been used for classes in recent years.
Pence and Mayor Dennis Tyler were among the speakers at the April 2015 announcement that ASONS would grow and add "up to" 316 jobs by 2024 to join an existing ASONS workforce of 150 people.
"ASONS is just the latest chapter" for Muncie economic development, Pence said in April 2015.
But internal company emails obtained by The Star Press show that, within a few months of that announcement, financial concerns were growing at ASONS, which had satellite offices around the country in addition to its corporate headquarters in Muncie.