Federal payroll plan to bring jobs to National Finance Center

NEXT YEAR, THE New Orleans Business and Industrial District will be home to thousands of technology jobs after the Department of Agriculture's National Finance Center was tapped to be one of four federal payroll centers.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management made the announcement Wednesday,

"This is another example that NOBID is a decent place to do business. I can bet you that if the government was not completely sold on that location, then that selection would not have been made," says NOBID President Eugene Green.

The National Finance Center, which runs payroll systems for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, employs more than 1,600 people at its offices in NOBID.

The center along with three other agencies, will replace 22 current providers of payroll and related services for the federal government's 1.8 million employees. The ePayroll initiative is part of President Bush's Management Agenda, which is designed to save taxpayer dollars by streamlining government operations.