Hilliard’s annual review addresses a narrow question: whether two Amazon-linked data-center projects met job and payroll commitments tied to their tax abatements. Both reports identified the projects as compliant and recommended continuing the abatements, while listing millions of dollars in property taxes forgone for 2025, according to Cleveland.com.
The reports listed about $3.4 million in forgone property taxes for the Amazon Data Services project and $4.9 million for Vadata, for a combined total of roughly $8.37 million. They also recorded $820,655 in property taxes paid across the two projects’ separate parcels, Cleveland.com reported.
The companies’ reported employment and payroll figures exceeded their commitments. Amazon Data Services reported 313 new jobs against a target of 35 and about $21.67 million in new annual payroll against a $2.45 million target; its deadline was Dec. 31, 2026. Vadata reported 232 new jobs against a target of 25 and about $25.33 million in new annual payroll against a $2 million target. Vadata’s deadline was Dec. 30, 2021, according to Cleveland.com. Hilliard City Council accepted the compliance review through a resolution on Sept. 28.
Compliance is not a full accounting of public returns
The reports’ job figures are not independent verification of permanent operating positions, and adding the two projects’ totals does not establish a count of distinct workers. Nor do the compliance findings show whether the public benefits exceeded the costs or whether the incentives caused the reported hiring, Cleveland.com noted. The $8.37 million is property tax listed as forgone in these reports, not a complete tally of public support or a calculation of the projects’ net cost to taxpayers.
Another term of the agreement illustrates why the forgone-tax figure is not a complete picture of the deal. The City of Hilliard says the Amazon CRA agreement provides the Hilliard City School District up to $3.4 million annually, calculated as $400,000 plus $1.50 per square foot, with up to two million square feet planned, for the agreement term. That is a separate agreement provision; the city’s description does not establish how much the district received in 2025 or resolve the projects’ overall costs and benefits.
Taken together, the review documents that the companies reported exceeding their job and payroll benchmarks and that the projects received substantial property-tax abatements. It does not, on its own, measure the full public return or establish what would have happened without the incentives.
