It’s about time these IDA’s and Authorities start being held accountable. We have given so many tax breaks to favored people and businesses and it seems no one ever follows up to check their progress and holding up their side of the deal. More than not the tax breaks end and the company leaves. So who benefits?

What we need is tax breaks and cuts across the board to keep businesses and people here. Not just the favored few.

Industrial-strength lack of information cited
Comptroller says job-creation authorities risk loss of tax-break powers unless they toe line on reports

ALBANY — State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli on Wednesday warned the state’s industrial development agencies to clean up their act — or risk losing their ability to issue some tax breaks.

DiNapoli released a report saying too many of the agencies charged with generating economic development are failing to report financial and job creation information to state regulators, as required.

“IDAs are supposed to create jobs,” DiNapoli said. “When they report on job creation, taxpayers should know that the numbers are right. Given the way IDAs are currently reporting information, there’s no way of knowing that.”

New York has a complex web of independent public authorities and agencies. Some, like the state Thruway Authority, are big and widely known. But most are much smaller and operate on the local level.

IDAs are authorized to buy, sell or lease property and provide tax-exempt financing for approved projects. Property owned or controlled by IDAs is exempt from property and mortgage recording taxes, and purchases linked to IDA projects can be exempt from state and local sales taxes.

IDAs typically target their assistance to projects in which developers claim to create jobs.

But the comptroller’s 28-page report says that many of the 116 IDAs that seem to be active did little to verify the job claims made by developers seeking tax breaks. And reports submitted to the state by IDAs had incomplete costs for 27 percent of the projects and incomplete job data for 9 percent.

The report is new ammunition for critics who are pushing for IDA reform and arguing that too many of the authorities are unaccountable to the public and too willing to give away taxpayer money to undeserving projects.

“This report affirms what we have been saying for years,” said Carrie Brunk, executive director of New York Jobs with Justice, a union-backed advocacy group. “It’s time to reform IDAs.”

The report comes shortly after the Assembly’s passage of a bill, sponsored by Buffalo Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, that would significantly alter the way IDAs operate. State Senate and Assembly leaders have been negotiating with the Spitzer administration to craft a compromise bill.

Business groups and IDA officials warn that reforms — particularly a measure in the Assembly bill that would force IDA-backed developers to pay union-level wages — would cripple the agencies and rob the state of a key economic development tool.

Alexander “Sandy” Mathes, executive director of the Greene County IDA, insists that most IDAs act openly and transparently — and to the benefit of their communities. He warned that increasing oversight of the agencies, which often have small staffs and budgets, bogs them down in paperwork and limits their ability to succeed.

Jennifer Freeman, a spokeswoman for DiNapoli, said the comptroller’s office is well aware that the release of the report coincides with executive and legislative moves for reform. She said the office hopes the report is helpful to those efforts but stressed that the timing is coincidental.

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