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This is a straight up lie of a headline.

The tax exemption was for SALES TAX on MATERIALS AND EQUIPMENT for CONSTRUCTION, because those local purchases helped the local construction industry.

You can read the actual authorizing resolution for yourself here:

https://rocklandida.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Authorizi...

The idea that permanent jobs were some kind of a trade, or even factored into the decision at all, is completely fabricated.

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It’s “exemptions from state and local sales tax on materials, services and equipment used in the construction, renovation and equipping of the Project” and that includes a whole lot more than local construction industry stuff. Most of the cost of a data center comes from servers and other hardware, in particular. Also, there’s other tax breaks (like the property tax abatement) that come from working within IDA.

I do agree that local jobs have nothing to do with this decision, because it’s clearly a stupid one if that’s the case.

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