When they talk about the giant property tax breaks they're extending to Intel, Hillsboro and Washington County officials like to use a dollar figure: $147,000.
That's the average high-tech salary in Hillsboro, said Mark Clemons, the city's economic development director. Retaining such high-paying jobs was a major incentive for the city and county to negotiate the deal, which could allow Intel to forego paying more than $2 billion in property taxes over 30 years.
The tax breaks, on expensive and fast-depreciating equipment, would be associated with as much as $100 billion in new local investment.
The $147,000 average high-tech salary in Hillsboro is significantly higher than the average high-tech salary statewide: $98,842, according to the Oregon Employment Department.
But average salaries are often skewed upward by the outliers at the high end. The statewide median salary in the high-tech industry, according to the Oregon Employment Department, is $76,887 – over $20,000 lower than the average.
The median salary associated with the $147,000 figure Clemons gave was unavailable, the state department said, because it's associated with a different set of data.
To get the $147,000 figure, local economic development officials like Clemons asked the employment agency for data associated with the "conglomeration of 14 high-tech industries in a specific, Census-defined sub-county geographic area in Washington County," said Oregon Employment Department Senior Economic Analyst Gail Krumenauer in an email. To do that, the agency calculated an average wage by parsing quarterly census data, which is not detailed enough to calculate a median, Krumenauer said.
The department does have the ability to calculate statewide averages and medians using wage record files, however, and that's where the $98,842 and $76,887 figures come from. But the wage record files do not go down to the sub-county level.
It's probably safe to say the median high-tech salary in Hillsboro is substantially less than $147,000. Intel reported profits of $9.6 billion in 2013, and some of its top executives work in Oregon, where the company employs about 17,500.
City and county officials will vote on the deal after a public hearing on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Washington County building in downtown Hillsboro.
-- Luke Hammill