Apple gets final approval from county, locks in at least $5.4 million in tax rebates

The Travis County Commissioners Court (Texas) gave its final approval to a contract with Apple to bring 3,635 jobs to a planned North Austin campus by 2025.

The deal will give the technology giant between $5.4 million and $6.4 million over 15 years and comes more than a month after the City of Austin approved a 10-year, $8.6 million rebate and the state offered $21 million in incentives from the Texas Enterprise Fund. The commissioners voted 4-1 in favor of the deal, which late last week established some minimum salaries for workers. An Apple representative, local and state governmental affairs manager Jason Lundgaard, addressed the court publicly for the first time. Lundgaard responded to questions about the company’s withholding of employee demographic information and the deal’s dropping of a requirement to hire some portion of economically disadvantaged individuals. Lundgaard gave mostly brief answers to questions, primarily coming from Precinct 2 Commissioner Sarah Eckhardt, who was the lone vote against the deal.