AUSTINTOWN — An abatement approved by the township Monday has cleared the way for 200 new jobs at a local call center.
Monday, trustees OK’d a 60-percent, 10-year tax abatement for Infocision, which announced a $6 million expansion of its Interstate Boulevard facility.
The addition will double the facility’s size, taking the building to 50,000 square feet, and add at least 200 new jobs, said Steve Brubaker, company senior vice president for corporate affairs.
“We view this as a partnership between the township and Infocision,” said Trustee David Ditzler. The township has revoked tax abatements, he said, when the companies they’ve been granted to haven’t held up their end of the bargain.
Brubaker said his company, started in Akron in 1982, now employs 4,000 people in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia and has seen 14 percent growth this year.
The company provides fundraising for political interests and non-profit organizations, as well as customer service and sales calls for large national corporations, he said. The expansion is due to their quality of service, he said.
“We are winning clients back from offshore call centers,” he said. People in the Mahoning Valley work hard for the company; turnover at the call centers is low, he said, thanks to the salaries, benefits and other perks employees are offered.
In addition to health benefits and 401(k) contribution matching, Infocision also has found ways to lower the cost of health insurance by having a self-insured system, and by having a doctor on-site for employees and also offers a fitness center on site.
Thomas Presby of the Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber of Commerce, who introduced the abatement request to trustees, said the Mahoning County Enterprise zone in Austintown is one of the most vibrant areas for business development in the county.
Now that the trustees have approved the abatement, the request will go for approval before the Mahoning County commissioners. After they sign off on the tax reduction, the company will move forward with groundbreaking for the new facility, Presby said.
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