Labor, Good Government, Faith, and Community Groups Urge Support for Reforming IDAs Before End of Session
Reforms are Long Overdue and Can No Longer Wait!
New York’s IDAs are losing their way. There is broad recognition that these unelected, appointed agencies wield enormous power with far too little oversight while giving away billions of our tax dollars in corporate subsidies. These subsidies shift the fiscal burden onto local communities and taxpayers while depriving governments of resources needed for education, infrastructure, and essential public services. Last month, New Yorkers learned that a county IDA gave JP Morgan $77 million in future state and local tax revenue to create one permanent job expanding a data center – by far the largest government subsidy per job ever seen in the U.S. or globally. This is just the latest in a series of questionable IDA deals draining local tax bases and costing schools statewide at least $1.8 billion a year. Something has to change.
We urge the Legislature to pass this session the following bills to make IDAs more accountable and transparent; prohibit the indiscriminate give-away of billions in tax dollars otherwise slated for schools and government; and ensure stakeholders with the most to lose are represented on IDA boards.
We support the following bills:
- S9182-A (May) / A10852-A (Kelles): Prohibits data centers from receiving IDA tax breaks
- S9371(Comrie ) / A10545 (Solages): Requires employers submit a semi-annual report detailing the number of jobs going to local residents for a subsidized project
- S5563 (Mayer) / A7666 (Solages): Authorizes County Comptrollers to audit IDAs and LDCs
- S3159 (Skoufis) / A5258 (Solages): Prohibits county IDAs from offering incentives in municipalities with their own IDA – Prevents “IDA Shopping”
- S4464 (Mayer) / A838 (Solages): Adds school board and labor representatives to IDA boards to ensure the voices of those most directly impacted by these decisions are at the table.
- S10269 (Skoufis) / A4297 (Bronson): Prohibits IDAs from waiving school taxes, ensuring that decisions affecting school district revenue cannot be made unilaterally by an unelected board with no representation from the affected schools.