Availity LLC, a Jacksonville-based health care IT company said it asked the city and state to extend its incentives deadline for a year to create 250 jobs.
Availity agreed to create the jobs at an average wage of $70,000 by year-end 2021, starting with 130 this year.
Molly Miles, Availity vice president of product and brand marketing, said the company added 115 jobs during 2018 and this year through Nov. 30 and continues to hire, but the company wasn’t sure it would fill the additional 15 jobs by year-end.
“These are very skilled workers with competitive compensation,” Miles said.
Miles said Availity pays the added employees an average of $88,000, exceeding the target wage level by 25 percent.
“We have a lot of people relocating to Jacksonville for these jobs and what we do is very complex. We have a lot of extremely skilled people and a ton of applicants for every job,” she said.
Instead of trying to fill the 15 jobs by year-end, she said Availity chose not to rush.
“There is no penalty to extend. Let’s find the right people and take the time to do so,” she said.
She said Availity created 72 jobs in 2018 and 43 in 2019. It now has 429 jobs in Jacksonville.
Most of the positions added were application developers, data analysts, call center representatives, and product owners, Miles said.
The open positions include “a little bit of everything,” she said, including application developers, relationship managers, marketers and quality assurance managers.
“We are humbled by the incredible amount of interest we continue to receive for our open positions, and feel fortunate to employ so many talented people,” said Availity CEO Russ Thomas in a statement.
Miles said the 2017 economic development agreement allows for tax credit incentives to be paid if Availity reached 80 percent of the committed amount, although the city agreement shows that imposes a 5% penalty.
That means Availity could receive incentives because it created 104 jobs.
Miles said the company opted for the extension instead.
City Council adopted legislation April 25, 2017, for a Qualified Target Industry Tax Refund for Availity to create 250 jobs by year-end 2021 and retain the more than 300 jobs it already had.
That economic development agreement called for the city to refund $300,000, or $1,200 per job, and the state would pay $4,800 per job, up to $1.2 million, totaling $1.5 million.
Availity pledged to pay an average wage of $70,000 for the new jobs.
The tax refund is paid after Availity creates the jobs, taxes are paid and the wages are verified.
The job schedule showed Availity agreed to create 130 new jobs by year-end 2019, another 55 by December 2020 and 65 by the end of 2021.
Miles said the agreement allowed Availity to extend the dates for a year with no penalty, and it requested that extension from the city and state Dec. 19.
“While we are still actively hiring for positions in 2019, it makes more sense to file for the extension and maximize our incentives over the long term,” Miles said.
Availity negotiated the agreement as the unidentified Project Avalanche.
The city’s economic development agreement discloses it as Availity.
The agreement, signed May 6, 2017, says the deal will encourage capital investment of $10 million, which a legislative summary said includes tenant improvements, IT equipment, furniture and fixtures. That investment isn’t tied to the incentive benefits.
In August 2018, Availity LLC and about 400 employees moved into new headquarters offices at Town Center One at 5555 Gate Parkway.
It leases most of the five-story, 160,000-square-foot Town Center One, moving from less space at the nearby WaterView building.
Brasfield & Gorrie LLC built-out the space at a project cost of $4.82 million, not including furniture, appliances and other amenities.
Availity was launched in 2001 in Jacksonville as a joint venture between Florida Blue and Humana. It says the goal was to make it easier for health plans and providers to collaborate by streamlining processes among payers.
Miles said Availity has about 1,000 employees, including 151 in an Indianapolis office and 294 in Bangalore, India, as well as remote workers.
