A proposal to lease the city’s parking meters for 50 years would require the vendor to bring 200 jobs to Indianapolis for at least seven years.
City officials this week begin touting that part of the agreement with Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services Inc., as the deal increasingly becomes a subject of heated debate.
The lease has been promoted by city leaders as a way to modernize meters and generate $400 million or more in revenue for road and sidewalk improvements in areas near the meters. But critics have said it would restrict the city’s flexibility when it comes to urban planning and rake in lots of revenue—perhaps as much as $1.2 billion, according to an IBJ estimate—for ACS.
According to documents published Monday on the city’s website, the 200 jobs would include call center and data entry positions, information technology workers and managers.
The salaries and benefits would be “market-competitive to similar positions in Indianapolis,” which ACS put in the range of an annual $16,000 to $40,000 for data entry and call center jobs and $45,000 to $95,000 for the information technology and managerial roles.
The company would be required to roll out the jobs within two years of signing the contract, a timetable that is contingent upon whether the City-County Council approves the deal and the timing of their vote, said Chris Gilligan, an ACS spokesman.
The agreement also stipulates that 50 of the 200 jobs be located in Center Township, including some filled by employees who live in Center Township and would be given clearance to work from home. The company would determine other locations based on factors such as cost and ability to attract staff.
ACS would pay the city a monthly penalty of $166.67 for each job the company did not provide.
The company estimated the seven-year impact of the jobs between $18 million and $24 million, according to the online documents.
Gilligan said ACS also has added jobs in cities such as Anderson, Lexington, Ky., and Oklahoma City.
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So, for ACS to "say" they are going to bring 200 jobs with this deal, is insulting.
Their current employee's throughout Indiana live off pennies, food stamps, and are regular patrons of local food pantries.
Ballard, do not take this dangling carrot. Do not structure the deal for 50 years. More like 5 years with an option. This is ample planning time to see what may be coming in the future to prepare and plan for it. 50 years, we may all need to have Hover Parking Meters for our Flying Cars. Do they retain that parking air space too.
Please everyone - email your Councilor and tell them NO! Not right now, lets see how well the Water Deal Does first!
Georgie, I assure you the powers-to-be will read your comments on here. I also assure you they don't care what you think. They want to make as much money as they can and as long as they can keep together the Republican majority, they'll pass it.
Keep digging Ballard, you'll hit Chinatown soon.
ACS is now saying it will create 200 jobs in Indianapolis. This is not in the lease contract anywhere, but in some side agreement. The meter lease contract, like most corporate deals, has a clause that says, â??This Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between the Parties pertaining to the subject matter hereof and supersedes all prior agreements, negotiations, discussions and understandings, written or oral, between the Parties.â?? In short, if itâ??s not in the contract, it doesnâ??t count. The only reason â?? the only reason â?? to put a jobs pledge in a separate â??letter of agreementâ?? is to render it unenforceable. Even if it magically were, the jobs only have to be around for seven years â?? a far cry from the 50 they expect the people of Indianapolis to commit to â?? and the fine for not creating a job is less than the penalty the city would have to pay for removing just one meter. Thatâ??s right, those jobs are worth less than a parking meter each even in the unlikely event the agreement is enforceable. In short, this agreement is basically worthless and clearly just a gimmick to try to salvage a deal pretty much everyone recognizes is bad for the city.
Please cancel plans for this contract, we can do it better ourselves without 50 years of handcuffs.
Their minds are already made up, and if enough wheels get greased it will be another political corruption done deal. I, like others here, keep thinking that if the outside vendor can make such a great profit, why can't the city make just as big a profit.
I know, I know. Because if the city were to make it, it would have to be a "no lump sum" deal to crow about and get their hands in. Come on, the guys who are making this deal will be dead in 50 years, as will I. And the future generations will have their hands tied.
The same as with the Toll Road lease. Sure we have mega-bucks in that fund, but those finds will be spent before the perpetrators leave office. Then where will we find funds for future projects with nothing else left to sell (I mean lease)? It is definite that even my kids will be dead in 75 years, and then our future-future generations will have their hands tied.
I think it is deplorable that we would even consider usurping the future generationâ??s right to make their own deals. So, if a deal is to be made, how about a ten year deal. I may be dead by then, but the future generations will have their own deals to make.
First these guys fail to calculate the value of the contract they are awarding, which the IBJ calculates could be in excess of $1.2 BILLION in Profits saying it doesn't matter.
Now they put out some lame projection of increasing local employment with 195 minimum wage jobs with a penalty that charges only $167 per employee for contract non performance, when the city is counting on a $18 to $20 million benefit? No doubt they want millions in training grants, tax credits, and tax abatements thus creating a negative benefit.
My 10 year old daughter has better negotiation and math skills than these jokers.
Someone please explain to me how selling the future right to collect money saves the city money. It just lets SOMEONE ELSE make a profit.
Broadly put, why doesn't the city make that profit instead? I know that there would be hurdles to doing this, but ANYTHING is better than screwing us for the next 50 years.