Rachel Karshens and her 18-month-old daughter, Brela, are had lunch outside Austin City Hall Thursday. Meanwhile inside City Hall, Kevin Johns, the City's director of economic growth, presented a $1.2 million incentive plan for eBay to council members.
Council members listened intently and asked questions but did not make any decision. That will happen next week, though Karshens has already made up her mind. She does not believe it is a good use of tax payer money.
“Pumping money into big corporations doesn't make sense to me when teachers are being let go,” said Karshens.
Johns disagrees. He says recruiting the top global commerce company in the world will help Austin create more high-tech jobs in the future.
The jobs would be software engineers and the average annual salary would be $122,575.
Johns says the city will benefit.
“We make money on it,” Johns said. “The 1,000 jobs is not chump change.”
eBay has had a presence in Austin for the past four years. It has a workforce of more than 300 employees. Under the plan, eBay would create 1,000 jobs over 10 years. In return, the city would provide $1.2 million in incentives. The jobs would come from eBay and its subsidiaries including PayPal.
Terrance Spielman is the senior director of PayPal. He says the company is excited about the technical talent in Austin.
“We find Austin to be a very attractive market for the kind of employees that do e-commerce on a global basis,” said Spielman.
Last year the city had a banner year in recruiting new businesses with more than two dozen companies moving their headquarters or opening operation centers in Austin. This would be the first on for 2011.
A vote will come April 12.
