TU: Council panel backs $3.4 million incentives deal for Blue Cross subsidiary

[Patricia M. McBride]

More corporate welfare?  Or something that will help create 400 much needed above average paying jobs?  Your feelings?

 

First Coast Service Options looks to hire nearly 400 employees.

Posted: November 15, 2011

 

By Steve Patterson

November 15, 2011 - 01:20pm

Council panel backs $3.4 million incentives deal for Blue Cross subsidiary

A pair of Jacksonville City Council panels endorsed a $3.4 million incentives package Tuesday for a Blue Cross and Blue Shield subsidiary to add 395 jobs.

First Coast Service Options wants to add employees at the Blue Cross building at 532 Riverside Ave., near downtown, if it lands a Medicare administration contract next year.

The company won’t hire anyone and won’t ask for the money if the contract doesn’t come through, Jacksonville Economic Development Commission staffer Joe Whitaker told the council Finance Committee.

The panel voted 4-3 for the deal. A council committee on recreation and community development later approved the bill (2011-672) by a 6-0 vote, clearing the way for a decision by the full council next week.

Debate Tuesday included arguments about whether the city was doing enough to ensure that jobs subsidized by the incentives would benefit Duval County residents.

“The issue is where are we hiring,” Councilman John Crescimbeni told Finance members. “We have unemployed Duval County residents that we need to put to work.”

He said county taxpayers would pay for part of the incentives package and should get some assurance about how the money would be used.

The great majority of employees have historically lived in the county, said Diana Haramboure, First Coast’s senior vice president and chief administrative officer. But she told the committee there could be legal barriers to mandating where employees can live and she wasn’t able to bargain with the committee over additional terms to the incentives deal.

Councilman Doyle Carter, who is not part of the Finance committee, asked Haramboure for a breakdown of how many of the company’s current 1,018 Jacksonville-based employees live in the county. Haramboure said she would provide that.

The incentives deal is part of the state’s Qualified Target Industries program, which offers aid to businesses in selected industries that will pay employees above-average wages.

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2011-11-15/story/council-panel-b...