Once the deal closes, the city's visibility into project execution drops to whatever public records generate on their own schedule. The company knows whether equipment is on order, whether commissioning is tracking, whether first commercial shipment will hit the date the incentive clawback assumes. The city knows what the building permit says.
That asymmetry is manageable if you know what each record can actually detect and when it becomes available. A building permit confirms code-regulated construction started. A certificate of occupancy confirms the structure is habitable. Equipment installation, commissioning, and first product acceptance are three additional milestones in factory delivery, and none of them produce a public filing.
Employment verification through BLS QCEW arrives five to six months after quarter end. Roughly 60% of county-level private-sector data is suppressed. The city's own ACFR, carrying GASB 77 tax abatement disclosures, typically publishes 4 to 8 months after fiscal year end and does not require recipient names.
The column at right maps each source to its availability window and what it can catch.
Weeks post-close: Building permit filing confirms construction began under code review. Says nothing about equipment procurement or production schedule.
Monthly: Council agendas and minutes surface amendment requests, infrastructure change orders, schedule slips. Post-close capital obligations appear here first.
Quarterly + 5-6 mo: BLS QCEW county data shows manufacturing employment by NAICS subsector. ~60% suppressed at county level; cannot attribute jobs to a named employer.
Annually: County assessor roll shows improvements and whether recorded ownership matches the announced deal structure.
FY end + 4-8 mo: City/county ACFR with GASB 77 note shows taxes actually abated. Recipient names not required; program-level aggregation permitted.
Annual (varies): State EDA performance report verifies jobs and investment against commitments. SC Coordinating Council is the current transparency benchmark.
Phase deadlines: Certificate of occupancy confirms building complete, often the incentive trigger. Does not confirm equipment installed or product shipped.
60 days pre-event: WARN notice is the earliest mandated signal of closure or mass layoff. Federal threshold: 100+ employees, 50+ affected. State thresholds vary (NY: 50 employees, 90 days).