ATM manufacturer NCR Corp., lured by a $60 million package of incentives, is leaving Dayton, Ohio — the city where it was founded more than 100 years ago — and moving to Duluth, Ga.
The move will cost Ohio 1,200 jobs and its only Fortune 500 company.
Ohio was not happy.
Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher said he and Gov. Ted Strickland were “extremely disappointed” about NCR’s decision to relocate.
Fisher said repeated requests to NCR’s senior management to discuss the company’s plans went unanswered, and that the state was not given a “meaningful opportunity to negotiate.”
Ohio had offered NCR a package of incentives worth about $31 million dollars, Fisher said. He added that Ohio “could have matched or exceeded” the $60 million Georgia put up, if the company had been more willing to communicate.
“This was simply a unilateral decision by senior executives,” he said, calling the NCR’s disregard for the community in Dayton a “shameless irresponsibility.”
NCR disagreed.
For its part, NCR said that the decision was based on a broad range of criteria which included “available workforce, infrastructure, incentives given, the government tax structure and benefits to NCR employees, future employees and stakeholders.”
As part of the agreement NCR will build a new manufacturing facility in Georgia as well, which will add another 870 jobs to the state. Some NCR operations will remain in Ohio, but the company’s headquarters building will be sold.
