Hillsborough offers $1.2 million so company won't leave

Hillsborough County may pay a financial services firm more than $1 million partly to help it add workers, but partly just to stick around.

If the company takes the money, it could set a new precedent for the county that - potentially - would encourage other companies to seek money for retaining workers. Traditionally, the county has given incentives for creating new jobs or luring new companies to the area.

Tuesday morning, Hillsborough County Commissioners approved offering an unnamed company an economic incentive package worth $1.2 million.

Much of the money would be in cash payments instead of more typical tax breaks, but the company wouldn't start receiving the payments for at least five years. The delay is designed to make sure the company creates jobs and saves others.

The company would build a $78 million office somewhere in the county and add another 200 employees. It also would retain an existing 1,633 jobs in the county, county records show.

County commissioners jumped on the issue Tuesday because the company has said even existing jobs are "at risk" of relocating to South Carolina or such countries as Argentina, India and Singapore.

The county would tap into a little-used program called the Premier Business Bonus Incentive Program to make the payments, and it waived a couple of the program's own rules to accommodate the company.

Normally, a company must pay at least 150 percent of the Tampa Bay area's average wage to qualify. But, in this case the company will only have to pay 115 percent. That comes to just shy of $47,000 per job.

Secondly, this might be the first time the county has offered "retention bonuses," said Bruce Register, a corporate recruiter for Hillsborough County.

Under the incentive package approved Tuesday, the county would pay the company $600 for each of the 200 new jobs it creates, plus another $600 for each of the existing 1,633 jobs. That totals about $1.1 million.

The county already agreed in May to provide the company with $120,000 in incentives for creating the 200 jobs through a different program. So, the combined local incentives are just over $1.2 million. The county would split those payments with a city if the company locates inside a city's borders.

Finally, the state would kick in another $800,000 in incentives through a separate program, bringing the total city, county and state package to more than $2 million.

The money is set aside specifically for economic development.

County officials wouldn't reveal the mystery company Tuesday, because economic development prospects are confidential.

However, financial-related firms with 1,600 or more Hillsborough employees include JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, PricewaterhouseCoopers and – if you include insurers – Humana, Progressive, USAA and MetLife, according to a list from the Tampa-Hillsborough Economic Development Corp.

City records narrow the company down to a "financial consulting services company," and county records say it's in Tampa's West Shore area. That might suggest PricewaterhouseCoopers, which fits both criteria.

Steven Silber, a spokesman for PricewaterhouseCoopers would only say, "PWC has not signed a lease for any property. Therefore, it is inappropriate to comment on any speculation concerning incentive packages."

Hillsborough County may not have offered retention incentives before, but it's not a new idea nationally.

Financial services companies in New York have long commanded incentives to keep workers in town instead of moving them to New Jersey or Connecticut, said Philip Mattera, research director for a nonpartisan watchdog group called Good Jobs First.

"Unfortunately, it is not as big a rarity as it should be," Mattera said.

Theoretically, other companies might also look to the county for retention incentives, and it would be up to the County Commission to set a policy, said Register, the county business recruiter.

County Commissioner Kevin Beckner said commissioners set the bar very high in this case. The company must make a huge financial investment, which should prevent too many other companies from making the same request, he said.