Tyco, COMIDA Accountability and how are we going to know?
I liked the print edition article in the Sunday D&C headlined Tyco cuts jobs but won’t lose tax deal
Here is the deal. Tyco is a big company, a really big company and has some subsidiaries worldwide two of which are here locally - Tyco Electronincs and Tyco ELO TouchSystems. Tyco Electronics just cut 41 jobs and is transferring the rest to ELO TouchSystems. ELO TouchSystem got a COMIDA deal back in 2007 to the tune of 400K in tax benefits in order to add 20 jobs over 5 years.
So sports fans there you have it. A worldwide conglomerate gets tax breaks to expand one operation yet less than a year later - pulls 41 jobs out of the local economy at another subsidiary. Oh, by the way, what is the Market Capitalization of Tyco? $20 billion dollars. Yeah, that 400K really makes a difference doesn’t it.
But this question is how do we know that that some of those transferred jobs won’t be counted as the new jobs that are supposed to be created by ELO TouchSystems?
Tyco’s Metro Park facility never received any tax breaks from COMIDA, and the Tyco closing doesn’t affect ELO’s tax breaks, said county Economic Development Director Judy Seil. But ELO wouldn’t receive any tax breaks if it just absorbed Tyco workers, Seil said. “We don’t want the new jobs to come from transferring from something closing.”
When ELO went before COMIDA last year, the maker of touchscreen and touch monitor products employed 37 locally. COMIDA will keep tabs on ELO’s expansion in its annual survey of companies receiving county tax breaks, Seil said.
Got that? The crew at COMIDA is on the case. But exactly how is this stuff calculated in the ANNUAL survey? I suppose we can have a he said, she said battle of the think tanks.
The questions are
Why are tax breaks being given for a $20 Billion dollar company?
How do we make sure the jobs will be correctly counted?
Frankly, a statement that COMIDA is on the case is not enough.   Seems like we need some independent oversight. COMIDA has a vested interest. That is why we have independent audits. Hello IDA reform and Comptroller involvement.
To my way of thinking, having some independent oversight of IDAs through the Comptroller’s office just makes sense (like they do with local governments). We need it throughout the state, but, it is especially needed for COMIDA, which has quite a questionable history in terms of annual survey recordkeeping.