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United States Senator visits the Union Hall.

The Rochester Regional Joint Board hosted a Labor Leaders Meeting with U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on Tuesday, August 17th, 2010. The Senator spoke about a number of issues, including green jobs in New York State, economic recovery, and the importance of Federal Stimulus money being given to companies who keep and create jobs in the United States.

SUBJECT: Would you spend $135 million on broken promises?

If somebody asked you for $10 in exchange for breaking a promise, you’d probably say no.  If they asked for $135 million, you’d think they were crazy.  But last year that’s exactly what happened, as New York’s main job creation program gave away over $135 million of your tax dollars to corporations that promised to create jobs but didn’t.  We need to send a message to Albany that this misuse of our tax dollars has to stop :

Sign the JOBS WITH JUSTICE Petition

Throughout the state, 115 Industrial Development Agencies (IDAs) are charged with using tax incentives to encourage economic development.  They could be using their power to create quality jobs with family-supporting wages and benefits.  Instead, they’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars more each year while creating fewer and fewer jobs. Last year, they gave away a total of $645 million, $135 million of which went to companies that created no jobs or actually cut them.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, a recent report from the state’s Authority Budget Office revealed that IDAs and other public authorities shelled out over $6 million in bonuses that same year, including bonuses as large as $175,000 to the head of a Greene County IDA that shifted jobs from a neighboring community instead of creating new jobs in the region.

With one in ten New Yorkers out of work and the state facing record budget shortfalls, we need to make sure that every resource we have is devoted to putting New Yorkers back to work and creating sustainable and equitable economic growth. Please take a second to sign our petition calling on candidates to make IDAs an engine for job creation rather than a conduit for corporate tax giveaways:

This past week, New York Jobs with Justice/Urban Agenda in NYC and the Coalition for Economic Justice in Buffalo, NY released a new report, No Return on Our Investment: The Failure of New York’s Industrial Development Agencies, that details how IDAs have repeatedly failed to live up to their promise to improve New York’s economy for all New Yorkers. Among the report’s key findings:

• IDAs are spending more each year, but creating fewer jobs.
• IDAs have increased their spending on net tax exemptions by 82% since 2003, from $354 million in 2003 to $645 million in 2008.
• Over 80% of IDA spending results in net revenue loss to local government.

The report also provides nine specific policy recommendations to use business standards, accountability measures, and transparency reforms to change the way IDAs do business.  Albany could have put these reforms into place last year.  Instead, they failed to act.  As the November elections approach, we need to make sure our lawmakers won’t repeat the same mistake.  Sign the petition now to demand that every candidate running for office this fall place IDA reform at the center of their economic platform:

Sign the JOBS WITH JUSTICE Petition

We’ll deliver the petition this fall and keep you updated on our progress in making sure we get our money’s worth from IDAs.