Florida Governor Rick Scott spent Monday morning in Jacksonville celebrating the expansion of a financial tech firm that’s adding 250 people to its staff.
The deal was closed with the help of state and local economic incentives.
FIS has created 700 jobs since moving its headquarters to Jacksonville five years ago. Now company execs will add 250 people to the payroll, at an average salary of close to $50,000. Governor Scott says the company is committed to Florida.
“Now that’s on top of the 45,000 jobs they already have in the state and they’re making a $2 million investment as part of this 250 more jobs,” he says.
But the expansion wouldn’t have been possible without more than $1 million from a state economic development trust called the Enterprise Florida fund.
Scott proposed steering $250 million to the fund this year, but lawmakers have agreed to only $8 million. Scott also asked lawmakers to approve $1 billion in tax cuts -- they agreed to less than half that. Still, Scott is optimistic.
“We’ve added 1,025,000 jobs. We’ll see our numbers for January next Monday, but we’ve been adding 21,000 jobs a month right now and there’s no place like Florida,” he says.
With the Legislature poised to pass just $400 million in tax cuts before session ends this week, Scott is looking ahead to next year’s budget.
