When John Hagen became president and CEO of the Pasco Economic Development Council in January 2010, he already knew the county’s incentives program needed to be improved.

“The program was very complicated,” he says. “It took a lot of legal work and really wasn’t working.”

Later that year, the county implemented a new economic development ordinance that simplified the incentives process, essentially paying relocating or expanding companies between $2,000 and $5,000 for every job created. The higher the average salary of the new jobs, the more money the company gets.

“It’s a pretty aggressive job-creation incentive,” Hagen says. “No one will come here if they can’t get the right labor force, if they can’t get the right building or if they’re unhappy about the regulatory environment. But when you talk about incentives, it really gets their attention, especially when we’re competing against other communities.”

The incentives program has helped attract four technology firms to Pasco so far this year:

Hagen concedes that the county still has a lot of work to do, particularly competing with Hillsborough County for relocations. “Almost half of our workforce commutes,” he says. “You look at those southbound lanes and they’re full of taillights every morning. You look at the northbound lanes and nobody’s there.”