Late last year, New York's attorney general concluded that regional economic development and industrial development (EDCs and IDAs) slush funds were rife with the potential for seal-dealing, nepotism, improper loans and exorbitant expenses.
These taxpayer-supported rackets do government business but have little oversight and are exempt from being audited by the state comptroller's office. To say nothing of the massive redundancies of similar overlapping agencies. I've opined many times that a sober and thorough cost-benefit analysis would show this.
So it's little surprise that the comptroller has recently concluded that IDAs are a huge waste of money. Comptroller Tom DiNapoli said more than 4,000 businesses received the tax breaks, but that IDAs realized 22,000 fewer jobs last year than the year before while using the economic development tool. "Taxpayers are not getting enough bang for their buck when it comes to IDAs,"DiNapoli said, according to the Associated Press.
The comptroller noted that the cost of the average IDA-secured job increased 9 percent from 2010 to 2011.
DiNapoli proposed a bill that would allow taxpayers to better analyze the effectiveness of IDAs and their tax breaks. His bill would require clearly described job goals when a tax break is provided, followed by an accounting when the tax break expires. If the jobs promised weren't created, local governments would have a "claw back" provision to extract the avoided taxes from the company.
DiNapoli's proposal would also require annual reports from IDAs and a report card on projects and their job success.
Update: The Innovation Trail public radio project has a great piece on the lack of transparency in IDAs and its consequences.
Showing posts with label economic development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economic development. Show all posts
Saturday, May 05, 2012
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
AG targets 'economic development' slush fund corruption
A preliminary investigation by New York attorney general's office uncovered the potential for self-dealing, nepotism, improper loans and exorbitant expenses at some, reported The Associated Press.
These non-profit, taxpayer-supported rackets do government business but have little oversight and are exempt from being audited by the state comptroller's office.
Such findings echo an earlier assessment from this writer.
These non-profit, taxpayer-supported rackets do government business but have little oversight and are exempt from being audited by the state comptroller's office.
Such findings echo an earlier assessment from this writer.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Like any other drug, hydrofracking has serious side effects
As if poisoned drinking water isn't enough, the controversial natural gas extraction process known as hydrofracking has another serious side effect. Although backers pass it off as an economic panacea, WAMC is reporting that fracking lowers property values and, in the event you want to move away to a place with clean drinking water. it can make it almost impossible to sell your house.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Local bookstore shutters: we've met the enemy and it is us
Like most other local bibliophiles, I was incredibly saddened to learn of the closing of Red Fox Books in Glens Falls. They did a great job in reaching out to the community with a wide variety of programs, in bringing in a wide variety of authors both local and national and providing great, engaging customer service. It managed to survive for five years in an area which has struggled economically for the last 30 years and is a tough market for independent retailers. Red Fox’s demise was particularly disappointing since its opening was the culmination of a several year campaign to bring a full service bookstore to Glens Falls.
Like many other local bookstores in the country, Red Fox was badly affected not only by online retailers (which were in existence when RF opened) but particularly by the sharp rise in popularity of Amazon.com’s Kindle e-reader. Once you factored in shipping, the amount you’d save shopping at Amazon was usually quite minimal unless you bought a lot of books at a time. You could order just about any book via Red Fox’s website and pick it up at the store at no extra charge. You could buy e-books via Red Fox’s website and their pricing was pretty comparable to the Barnes and Noble, iTunes and the like. But many locals insisted on shopping at BN.com or Amazon to save 25 cents. The result: a failed local business, local people unemployed, the loss of choice for local bibliophiles and the loss of a good amount of local sales tax revenue. Enjoy that quarter!
One thing people who prefer this digital method of reading need to understand is that not all e-readers are created equal. If you buy the B&N Nook, the Apple iPad, Sony e-reader or some other kind, you can buy e-books at the site of the company who produced the e-reader but you can also buy them at your local independent bookstore (if you have one) and you can also get them via the library. But if you buy a Kindle, you have no choice; you are shackled to Amazon.com as your sole vendor. E-book readers have a choice that we physical book readers just lost... but make sure your decisions don’t eliminate that choice.
Of course, a great big thank you goes to Red Fox's owners Susan and Naftali for their great contribution to our community. It will be sorely missed.
A somewhat related piece of news that caught my eye was the closure of the Lowe’s big box home improvement store in Ticonderoga. Chains and big corporations do have some advantages over independent businesses, but one big disadvantage that can be summed up quite simply: easy come, easy go. Lowe’s lasted on two years in Ti before pulling the plug. Of course, one wonders what sort of damage it did to locally-owned businesses in that brief time period.
On North Country Public Radio’s In Box blog, commenter and Adirondack Almanack founder John Warren asked: How many people lost their jobs in Jay, Ticonderoga, and Port Henry because this store sapped their local business over the past several years? Those who opposed this store as strip development blight out of character with the rest of the community and a drain on local economies were right. Who will move into this 440-car parking lot and empty 150,000 square foot big box?... NCPR should now be holding those elected officials accountable by asking why they pushed for such risky development without concern for the locally owned businesses and historic character of Ticonderoga...
Local officials should definitely focus on helping small and medium locally-owned businesses, as the Lowe’s debacle illustrates. But the community has a responsibility too. Those locally-owned businesses can survive if local people are spending their money instead supporting chains half a country away.
Locals like to scapegoat boogeymen like 'big government' and 'onerous regulations' for the region’s sluggish private sector economy. And yet how many of us CHOOSE to send their own money to private sector businesses halfway across the country rather than comparable ones on Main Street in our own towns?
Like many other local bookstores in the country, Red Fox was badly affected not only by online retailers (which were in existence when RF opened) but particularly by the sharp rise in popularity of Amazon.com’s Kindle e-reader. Once you factored in shipping, the amount you’d save shopping at Amazon was usually quite minimal unless you bought a lot of books at a time. You could order just about any book via Red Fox’s website and pick it up at the store at no extra charge. You could buy e-books via Red Fox’s website and their pricing was pretty comparable to the Barnes and Noble, iTunes and the like. But many locals insisted on shopping at BN.com or Amazon to save 25 cents. The result: a failed local business, local people unemployed, the loss of choice for local bibliophiles and the loss of a good amount of local sales tax revenue. Enjoy that quarter!
One thing people who prefer this digital method of reading need to understand is that not all e-readers are created equal. If you buy the B&N Nook, the Apple iPad, Sony e-reader or some other kind, you can buy e-books at the site of the company who produced the e-reader but you can also buy them at your local independent bookstore (if you have one) and you can also get them via the library. But if you buy a Kindle, you have no choice; you are shackled to Amazon.com as your sole vendor. E-book readers have a choice that we physical book readers just lost... but make sure your decisions don’t eliminate that choice.
Of course, a great big thank you goes to Red Fox's owners Susan and Naftali for their great contribution to our community. It will be sorely missed.
A somewhat related piece of news that caught my eye was the closure of the Lowe’s big box home improvement store in Ticonderoga. Chains and big corporations do have some advantages over independent businesses, but one big disadvantage that can be summed up quite simply: easy come, easy go. Lowe’s lasted on two years in Ti before pulling the plug. Of course, one wonders what sort of damage it did to locally-owned businesses in that brief time period.
On North Country Public Radio’s In Box blog, commenter and Adirondack Almanack founder John Warren asked: How many people lost their jobs in Jay, Ticonderoga, and Port Henry because this store sapped their local business over the past several years? Those who opposed this store as strip development blight out of character with the rest of the community and a drain on local economies were right. Who will move into this 440-car parking lot and empty 150,000 square foot big box?... NCPR should now be holding those elected officials accountable by asking why they pushed for such risky development without concern for the locally owned businesses and historic character of Ticonderoga...
Local officials should definitely focus on helping small and medium locally-owned businesses, as the Lowe’s debacle illustrates. But the community has a responsibility too. Those locally-owned businesses can survive if local people are spending their money instead supporting chains half a country away.
Locals like to scapegoat boogeymen like 'big government' and 'onerous regulations' for the region’s sluggish private sector economy. And yet how many of us CHOOSE to send their own money to private sector businesses halfway across the country rather than comparable ones on Main Street in our own towns?
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
'Economic development' entities: useful tools or patronage factories?
I'd love to know why the city of Glens Falls (GF) spends so much money on so many different "economic development"-type entities. In addition to the Urban Renewal Agency (which may have a distinct purpose), the city also has:
-The Greater GF Local Development Corporation
-The GF Industrial Development Agency
... which largely duplicate the following county-level organizations...
-The Warren County Economic Development Corporation
-The Warren/Washington County Industrial Development Agency
... in addition to several economic development related positions inside City Hall itself...
-An economic/community development director (held by former mayor Ed Bartholomew)
-An economic development consultant (was Ken Green until he resigned following to DWI charges)
The city used to have a tourism coordinator (which itself mimicked the county tourism office) and a downtown events' coordinator as well, though I'm not sure if those positions are still filled.
Is all the money being spent by taxpayers of this small city on this plethora of unelected, unaccountable agencies, directors, consultants and coordinators really recouped by the work they do? Why can't all the City Hall functions be consolidated into a single position and the quasi-public agencies folded into their county counterparts? Do any business owners know what these entities are doing to validate their existence? In the midst of this economic tumult in a city with already high property taxes, I'd love to see hard economic numbers justifying all this apparent duplication.
-The Greater GF Local Development Corporation
-The GF Industrial Development Agency
... which largely duplicate the following county-level organizations...
-The Warren County Economic Development Corporation
-The Warren/Washington County Industrial Development Agency
... in addition to several economic development related positions inside City Hall itself...
-An economic/community development director (held by former mayor Ed Bartholomew)
-An economic development consultant (was Ken Green until he resigned following to DWI charges)
The city used to have a tourism coordinator (which itself mimicked the county tourism office) and a downtown events' coordinator as well, though I'm not sure if those positions are still filled.
Is all the money being spent by taxpayers of this small city on this plethora of unelected, unaccountable agencies, directors, consultants and coordinators really recouped by the work they do? Why can't all the City Hall functions be consolidated into a single position and the quasi-public agencies folded into their county counterparts? Do any business owners know what these entities are doing to validate their existence? In the midst of this economic tumult in a city with already high property taxes, I'd love to see hard economic numbers justifying all this apparent duplication.
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