Report: Transaction Fees Drive IDA Budgets Development Agencies Have Perverse Incentive to Give Away Tax Revenues Albany, N.Y. – Deal fees generate 80% of the operating budgets of New York’s 107 Industrial Development Agencies (IDAs), and for a third of IDAs, transaction fees account for 100% of their operating income. But for such fees, most IDAs would expire or barely exist.  IDAs in turn spend most of that revenue on their staff salaries and benefits, and on consultants.  The more tax revenue an IDA abates, the more dependent it is likely to be on deal fees for its operating inc ..read more

In healthy democracies, budgets are not secret and weeks late, and emergency powers are not abused so bills can be rushed to a vote sight unseen. The Governor and Legislature have once again failed to provide New Yorkers with basic budget transparency. At a minimum, state leaders should:  Honor the state constitution, which requires a minimum 3-day transparency period between time bills are printed and voted on. Stop abusing the Governor’s “message of necessity” emergency powers to stymie transparency and sneak past opposition and political embarrassment.  Provide simple financial t ..read more

NY corporate giveaway news from this week: Tesla is laying off nearly 300 workers at its Buffalo Riverbend “solar panel factory” (WIVB). The plant cost New York taxpayers nearly a billion dollars in subsidies and was the center of the Buffalo Billion bid-rigging scandal. Despite producing 10 million megawatt hours of hype, the plant never mass-produced solar panels as originally planned nor came close to hitting its original job targets. Albany does what it loves most – give away NYC property taxes to big donors. The Governor and Legislature have finally created a successor to the 421-a tax i ..read more

Reinvent Albany Testimony to Council Committee on Governmental Operations Oversight Hearing on NYC Lobbying RE: Enact 3-Year Revolving Door Ban, Improve Lobby Filings and Open Data April 19, 2024   Good morning Chair Restler and members of the Committee on Governmental Operations. My name is Rachael Fauss, and I am the Senior Policy Advisor for Reinvent Albany. Reinvent Albany advocates for transparent and accountable government in New York State and City. Thank you for holding this hearing today. First, we support the intent of the three bills you are considering today to reduce the und ..read more

Reinvent Albany Appreciates State Ethics Commission Publishing Recusal Forms When in Doubt, Government Should Put Records Out The Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government (COELIG) did the right thing by releasing unredacted recusal forms for its commissioners. It is particularly important for ethics commissioners to hold themselves to the highest standards of transparency, including on how they address their own potential conflicts of interest.  In response to a Freedom of Information Law request, COELIG initially released redacted versions of commissioners’ recusals forms, as re ..read more

As part of our advocacy for a strong NY democracy, Reinvent Albany issued a memo of support for the following bill: S611-A (Mayer) / A919-A (Jacobson) – Makes local elections commissioners full-time employees of the board. We also reissued a memo of support for the following bill: S8671 (Hoylman-Sigal) / A9621 (McDonald) – Requires agencies to submit FOIL logs to the Committee on Open Government. This bill was reported out of Assembly Government Operations. We urge the bills to be passed by the full Senate and Assembly. The post Support for Bill Improving NY Election Administration appeare ..read more

Editorial Boards from Across New York State Agree: Don’t Gut Small Donor Matching Program Before It Even Starts     2024   Editorial: Leave the state’s new matching program alone Times Union Editorial Board | April 10, 2023   […] The existing thresholds already require significant work and effort, particularly for wannabe candidates who are not professional politicians — meaning people who have full-time jobs and limited hours to spend asking for money. Meanwhile, the potential amount of money involved in the matching program — about $40 million — is a drop in the proverb ..read more

Reinvent Albany ​​Brennan Center for Justice Citizen Action of NY Citizens Union Common Cause New York Empire State Indivisible League of Women Voters of New York State Metro New York Health Care for All New York City Bar Association New York Communities for Change New York Immigration Coalition New York Public Interest Research Group New York Working Families Party Westchester for Change   MEMO OF OPPOSITION   S8969 (Skoufis)   Makes Significant Changes to NYS Public Campaign Finance Law   April 9, 2024   OUR GROUPS STRONGLY OPPOSE THIS BILL, which makes significant ..read more

We are waiting for New York’s delayed budget, which hopefully will contain no new corporate subsidies, and may even reduce some old ones. (Did we really write that? Wow.)  Meanwhile, we want to share a new report from the national watchdogs at Good Jobs First. “Ohio’s Lost Opportunity” bolsters the case against Opportunity Zones using something that’s been missing since the program’s inception: data. When the Opportunity Zones were established through Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, it was passed without any transparency requirements that would allow the public to see where investment ..read more

The New York State budget is late, meaning there’s still time for the Governor and Legislature to whittle down the $5 billion in taxpayer subsidies Albany doles out in corporate subsidies every year.  Here’s our 2024 Budget Subsidy Wish List: Completely eliminate the irrational Opportunity Zone tax break under which NYS gives a capital gains tax break to New Yorkers investing in oil fields, gun mega-sellers, and luxury condos in out-of-state OZs. The Senate put S543-A (Gianaris) / A2170-A (Dinowitz), which would fully end NY’s OZ tax break, into their one-house budget. The bill would sa ..read more