LAKE MARY, Fla. — In hopes of bringing jobs to Lake Mary, city leaders approved spending $75,000 tax dollars.
The company that may get that money has an “F’ rating with the Better Business Bureau.
Jeunesse is a company that sells skin creams and is now approved to collect $75,000 in tax money to bring 150 jobs to Lake Mary as part of the Qualified Target Industry Program.
“If you want to consider an anti-aging skin crème company, that’s a multi-level marketing company, a qualified target industry, that’s one thing, but I don’t necessarily believe they would be a type of company we’d go after,” said local business owner David Leavitt.
Leavitt argues Jeunesse would create jobs anyway because it needs employees but he questions whether a company with an “F’ rating with the BBB is worth the money.
“If you Google the name of the company followed by the word ‘scam’ you will find all kinds of interesting information,” he said.
The company spent millions to buy a building in Lake Mary.
Economic development manager Tom Tomerlin said the city spending $75,000 is an investment in what this new corporate headquarters will bring.
“We do require the jobs pay at least 115 percent of the county’s average annual wage before we participate in incentives,” said Tomerlin.
Tomerlin said it’s a refund program so the company must meet all requirements before it gets its money.
Now that the city has approved the $75,000, the county commission will vote whether to match and then the state will decide whether to spend the other 80 percent, bringing the total to $750,000.
“Every day we're cutting more and more social programs, yet we're turning around and not blinking an eye at giving away corporate welfare, which doesn't make sense to me. We've got our priorities backwards,” Leavitt said.
Jeunesse said it will add 150 new employees with an average salary of $47,000.
The company has another location in Altamonte Springs.
WFTV
