IDA Reforms Advance

The New York Senate committee on local government last week approved a bill that would add new accountability requirements to the state’s industrial development agencies as well as require prevailing wages be paid to workers on projects that receive IDA benefits.

“IDAs should be supporting responsible businesses that will deliver on their promises to provide good jobs and services to New Yorkers,” Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, D-Queens, said in a press release. “Because of the significant local tax breaks, we need to protect communities and see to it that promised economic benefits are delivered. As we work to turn our economy around, programs such as IDAs can play a significant role in development and job growth — if handled with the proper oversight.”

Though the bill still has to go through the Finance Committee before reaching the full Senate for a vote, the fact that it has gone this far and has the support of Smith represents a sea change in Albany now that both houses of the Legislature are controlled by Democrats. The bill is identical to one introduced in the Assembly this year by Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, D-Buffalo, which is similar to one that passed the Assembly last year.

The prevailing wage issue created deadlock last year between the then-Republican led Senate, which sided with business interests in opposing the wage requirement, and the Democratic Assembly, which sided with unions in pushing the requirement.

The Assembly’s local government committee could take the bill up before the end of the month.

This most recent IDA bill was stripped of a provision to renew a law that allowed IDAs to sell bonds for civic facilities on behalf of nonprofits. The expiration of that law in January 2008 has left some nonprofits without a means to finance capital projects. Hoyt said he wanted to separate the two issues.

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