St. Joseph County Council approves tax abatements and incentives for proposed Amazon data campus amid public concern

St. Joseph County Council voted 7–2 on Aug. 13 to approve a set of measures backing a proposed Amazon Data Services investment in the county, adopting a confirming resolution, a memorandum of agreement and an enterprise information-technology exemption after presentations from county economic development staff and public comment.

Bill Schallio, the county's economic development director, described the project as a potential "$11,000,000,000 investment being proposed by Amazon Data Services," and presented the council with the package of documents that together would establish a 50% real-property abatement on data "shells" for 10 years, an 85% enterprise technology exemption on qualifying personal property for 35 years, and a community enhancement agreement. "What we're before you today doing is asking for a confirming resolution to establish the percentage of 50% of real property abatement for a 10 year period," Schallio told the council.

Schallio's presentation included staff estimates and modeling of tax revenues and abatements tied to as many as 16 data shells across IEC sites 2 and 34. He said that, per state forms, a single data shell is estimated to produce about $2,300,000 in annual property-tax value under current assumptions, and staff used that figure to illustrate long-term outcomes and the effect of a 50% abatement for the first decade.

Residents who spoke in public comment urged caution. "It's the largest tax break that I think Amazon has ever received," said Steve Francis, a Clay Township resident, summarizing his review of the figures provided to the council and arguing the county had not been given numbers with adequate lead time. Mary Countryman of New Carlisle warned about water impacts, asking, "They want our water," and requested detail on worst-case scenarios such as drought.

County staff and the petitioner answered questions on jobs and water. Schallio said the enterprise exemption would require reporting on 400 "blue badge" positions that must pay at least 125% of the county average hourly wage (he cited $30.74 as the 125% threshold) and that the property-tax abatement side did not itself include a job requirement. On water, staff described two area water-treatment plants and said the county had set a cumulative cap of 24,000,000 gallons per day for the IEC area, estimating that full buildout of known projects would use about 21,000,000 gallons per day and that monitoring would be required under the community enhancement agreement.

Council members divided on whether incentives were necessary for the project to proceed. Two members, Ms. Drake and President Root, voted against each of the measures; seven members voted in favor. The council approved the confirming resolution (Bill 64-24), the memorandum of agreement (Bill 83-24), the enterprise technology exemption (Bill 84-24) and the economic development agreement (Bill 85-24) by individual recorded votes, each passing 7–2.

The most immediate next steps are administrative: the approved documents formalize the county's portion of the incentive package and the county will rely on annual reporting and the terms of the memoranda and development agreement to track job and investment commitments. The community enhancement funds that accompany the agreements were discussed by council and members urged that those funds be directed to the local townships directly impacted by the development.