Nah, $250 million is chump change for Apple, they have a $100 billion in cash. With the economic recession in 2009, real estate values are still depressed, lots of value out there. Plus, Apple parlayed this into a tax break.
A horrible deal. Somehow with the current cash assets of known magnitude, corporations should be required to pay a premium. Anywhere. 35 janitorial positions? Looks like even the cleaning staff will be mostly imported from elsewhere.
No.
Apple does not put janitorial people on its payroll, they would be outsourced like security, landscaping, catering, etc. Outsourcing is standard practice for Fortune 500 companies for non-core services. The janitorial service would be selected from one of the local companies competing provide commercial housekeeping services; the Apple facility would be added to their route. Would this create new jobs? Maybe, maybe not. It would largely be outside of Apple's influence if the maintenance company lost another contract elsewhere.
A few people doing weekly landscaping outside, a couple of people doing janitorial services inside once or twice a week. A vending machine guy would drop by once or twice a week to restock the machines in the break room, plus a few security guards for each shift but not much else would be necessary for this facility.
The security company might actually see the most benefit as they would need to staff 24x7. A least one person outside (driving around in the rain, periodically walking around on foot), plus at least one security person at the lobby desk, signing for UPS deliveries, letting the janitorial crew in, etc.
This facility would probably employ 35-50 full-time IT people once it is fully operational. Three eight hour shifts, seven days a week. Most would work remotely from home, maybe show up on-site infrequently. A couple of low-level network admins would be on-site, swapping out backup tapes, performing routine hardware maintenance (e.g., vacuuming server racks), replacing failed hardware, etc. while a mid-level IT manager monitors from some control room.
Most of them probably wouldn't live in Prineville or the surrounding towns; they would probably live in Bend (which is in a different county: Deschutes). It's not like 35-50 new families moving down the street. As I said, most of them wouldn't be on site most of the time.
This building's primary benefit to Crook County would be the temporary jobs from the construction, plus a few ancillary service contracts for landscaping, janitorial, and security services. Plus the local power company(-ies) would gain a major customer.
The $150,000 of guaranteed income is a good deal for the county. Let's say Apple hires 35 employees at $50K salary, that's $1.75 million in payroll. However, it is likely that most of those 35 won't even be living in the county, so there's no way for the county to recoup $175K even at 10% local taxation. This way, the county is guaranteed a steady flow of income that they can channel to local services, despite the fact that the people who are working at the facility don't live there and will mostly be telecommuting from Bend.
If I recall correctly, Oregon doesn't even have a state income tax. The long-term windfall will be after the property tax exemption is over. Th $150K per year will tie the county over until they start collecting on property tax.
As the local officials said, this is a pretty commonplace arrangement for these type of facilities.
