As the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Buffalo rallies mount against the wealthiest, a brand new effort that focuses on Industrial Development Agencies in the region has been launched.
A group of dedicated advocates and policy experts gathered outside the Holiday Inn Express on Niagara Falls Boulevard in Niagara Falls to talk about solutions to our region's job and economic crisis.
It's called Generating Waste. Generating Waste focuses on the three most active Industrial Development Agencies in the region, Niagara, Erie, and Amherst as well as on the NY Power Authority, and argues that New Yorkers are seeing too little in return for their billions of dollars of investment each year.
The nine IDAs in Erie and Niagara County are all separate public benefit corporations authorized by New York State to provide sales, property and mortgage recording tax exemptions to businesses.
Sam Magavern, Co-Director of The Partnership for the Public Good, discussed his organization's new report, Generating Waste, produced in coordination with the Coalition for Economic Justice, the Niagara Orleans Central Labor Council and the WNY Area Labor Federation.
"Unemployment and underemployment remain stubbornly high. Economic inequality continues to increase. New York faces severe budgetary challenges and has slashed spending in most sectors of State government. Now, more than ever, New Yorkers need to take a close look at the State's spending on economic development and the results that it is yielding," said Magavern.
"Currently, we're spending too much on corporate welfare programs that just re-slice the pie without growing it," Magavern continued. "We're subsidizing too many hotels, restaurants, medical offices, and car dealerships - subsidies that don't add jobs to the region - they just give one business an unfair advantage over its competitors. Meanwhile, we've let NYPA get away with shortchanging western New York on our low-cost power allocations."
Each IDA has its own Board, staff, legal representation and consultants. The IDAs operating expenses are generated based on fees that businesses pay based on the size of the tax break the IDA is able to deliver.
The Holiday Inn location chosen for the backdrop of Wednesday's ness conference received a package of tax incentives from the Niagara County IDA in 2007.
Roger Cook, the former Executive Director of the WNY Council on Occupational Safety and Health and a leader with the region's Interfaith Peace Network focused in on the particulars of the tax subsidy deal granted to developer Mohan Saran.
"What makes me so angry is that he received nearly $2 million in various tax breaks from the IDA but didn't use this money as taxpayers would expect to create local jobs. He hired a construction firm from Georgia that didn't properly train its workers and cut corners with respect to safety. Those cut corners cost a worker his life. This was a preventable tragedy. There are highly skilled construction workers eager for employment right here in Niagara County. Our IDAs need to reign in the waste and hold developers accountable," said Cook.