State officials continue to negotiate a contract with Foxconn Technology Group and the head of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. declined to put a timeline on when the deal would be completed.
“I’m not going to put a timeline on it,” said Mark Hogan, WEDC secretary and CEO, “I’m just saying when we get it done the right way, that’s when we’ll get it done.”
Gov. Scott Walker indicated during the bill signing for the Foxconn legislation that the contract would potentialy be signed by the first week of October.
The special session legislation set up the framework for the $3 billion in incentives Foxconn could receive in exchange for creating 13,000 jobs and making a $10 billion capital investment. WEDC still needs to negotiate a final contract, which Hogan has said would include clawback provisions and job creation thresholds for capital investment tax credits.
The WEDC board met Thursday for a regularly scheduled meeting. Hogan briefly updated the board on the negotiations and after handling a few other issues the board went into closed session.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Hogan said neither side is concerned about potentially missing a Sept. 30 deadline included in the memorandum of understanding signed in July. Instead, he emphasized the amount of progress that has been made since the company announced it was choosing Wisconsin.
“The contract is the one thing that’s hanging out there,” he said.
Hogan declined to get into specifics about what parts of the deal were holding up negotiations and said local officials are not part of the state’s deliberations with the company.
“They’re doing their own thing,” Hogan said of local officials. “We know what they’re doing, they know in general what we’re doing, but they’re not part of our contract discussions.”
He also declined to say if the company would be setting up operations in other existing buildings before its facilities are ready.
“I think that’s up to the company to comment on,” he said.
