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Nielsen Agrees To End Tax Rebates

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By RICHARD MULLINS

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 21, 2008

OLDSMAR - Nielsen Media Research and some local governments agreed to end a multiyear contract that brought the company tax rebates for bringing high-paying jobs to the region. However, that may not mean more job cuts are on the way.

In the past month, Nielsen officials have called in the mayor of Oldsmar and other officials who were sharply critical of the company for taking government incentives while outsourcing jobs to foreign workers.

Nielsen officials gave tours of the technical campus and disclosed broad outlines of a business plan that could mean hundreds, if not 1,000, more jobs at Nielsen locally, said Oldsmar Mayor Jim Ronecker. Until recently, Ronecker had been a sharp critic of Nielsen for hiring foreign contract workers while laying off American employees, even though Nielsen technically kept above the requirements of the contract.

"They're going to close some facilities nationwide, and they assured us Oldsmar is not one of those," Ronecker said. "They'll be moving jobs from those closed facilities somewhere else, and that's a tremendous opportunity for us. We need to show them they are welcome and we'll be a willing partner with them."

Nielsen's Oldsmar campus is the hub of technical development for gadgets that measure TV ratings and a range of other commercial ventures. Nielsen had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax rebates and other incentives for placing its technical center in Oldsmar and hiring more high-wage employees since the January 2004 contract began.

Nielsen began with a baseline of about 1,200 jobs in Oldsmar, and receives $500 to $1,000 annually per job added above 1,400. It employs 1,700 in Oldsmar after recent layoffs.

Nielsen recently has brought in about 200 contract workers to take over many of the technical-support positions in Oldsmar.

Between the city and the county, Nielsen received $2.9 million in tax rebates since 2002, company officials said. It likely will still receive about $346,000 in government incentives from company investments in 2007. In that time, it spent about $130 million to build its technical facility, where it measures TV ratings from across the country and develops new media research methods. It paid about $11.5 million in real estate and personal property tax payments since 2001.

"They're certainly a valuable economic entity to the city," said Oldsmar City Manager Bruce Haddock. "But the concern was that they were getting tax refunds under the agreement and at the same time laying off employees."

Nielsen spokesman Gary Holmes said there are no formal plans to add workers, though he acknowledged that Oldsmar is not on a list of sites set for closure.

"We think the incentives accomplished what they set out to do," Holmes said. "We made the investments here. We brought the payroll to Oldsmar. But this dispute has become a significant distraction for our employees."

Reporter Richard Mullins can be reached at (813) 259-7919 or

rmullins@tampatrib.com.

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