Tagged: industrial development agencies

In recent years, donut shops, car dealerships and doctor’s offices have received tax breaks from industrial development agencies in western New York.

Now, first-term Assemblyman Sean Ryan (D-Buffalo) has crafted a bill to halt such deals. He joins a growing chorus of critics who argue IDAs have lost their way since being created in the 1960s to generate high-paying manufacturing jobs.

Ryan hopes the legislation becomes a model for the rest of the state. But it’s far from being put to a vote.

More tax breaks does not equal more jobs.

That's according to State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli's latest report on New York's industrial development agencies (IDAs).

In his fifth report on IDAs [PDF], DiNapoli says the number of jobs created by the local economic development engines dropped by 22,000 from the year before.

DiNapoli also cites a $483 million gap in what IDAs gave out in tax breaks and how much they took in via payments-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOTs).

That breaks down, the report finds, to a $2,659 cost per job - up 9 percent from the year before.

"Taxpayers are not getting enough bang for their buck when it comes to IDAs," DiNapoli said in a statement.

A new bookstore and fitness center on University Hill in Syracuse may get a tax break after all.

The margin needed for approval has narrowed.

Members of the Syracuse Common Council and an economic development official confirmed Monday that new terms on the deal have been reached, at least in principal.

A tax-break deal for a new off-campus bookstore and fitness center for Syracuse University has gotten a reprieve.

The deal was slated for a vote in the Syracuse Common Council today, which, based on a whip count of the councilors, would have voted the deal down.

Instead, the council withdrew the legislation from the agenda, giving the project a shot to revise and resubmit.

The road ahead is far from certain though: Many councilors still have serious issues with a request from a private developer for a 30-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) deal to build a complex that it would then rent out to the university.

"I don't see where you would grant a PILOT in the most commercially viable area of the city and [for] a brand new building," said councilor Pat Hogan.

Hogan added he'll likely remain "a solid no" on the project.

Two days after being publicly outed for owing Syracuse and the county nearly $97,000 in back taxes, a board member of the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency (SIDA) has resigned.

His tenure with SIDA was short: He sat in on just two board meetings.

But one of those meetings included a "yes" vote on a controversial tax break for a proposed construction project on the University Hill.

And that was the catalyst for his ouster.

The make-up of the Syracuse Common Council was different when Thomas Valenti and his firm, Cameron Group, first approached it six years ago, but the opposition to the proposed project is still the same.

Valenti wants to develop a new off-campus bookstore and fitness center for Syracuse University.

In order to do that, he's requesting a 30-year property tax break from the city.

And therein lies the sticking point.

"If you have all of these grand ideas, then you should be able to finance this project," councilor-at-large Helen Hudson says. "We just can't keep excepting all of these entities."