State Needs to Approve IDA Reform Legislation

(Buffalo News)The Buffalo News
Saturday, June 14, 2008
 
Everybody’s Column

State needs to approve IDA reform legislation

Updated: 06/14/08 6:51 AM

Let’s stop giving tax breaks for Fantasy Island rides and speculative office space. The current system is broken. Critics of a comprehensive industrial development agency reform continue to repeat misinformed views about the costs of the proposed IDA reforms. These opinions, however, reflect little understanding of the construction industry, and ignore considerable research by construction economists. In fact, wage and benefit costs are only about one-third of overall construction costs, and research shows that skilled construction workers who receive higher wages are more productive and, in turn, lead to lower unit costs.

Providing good jobs with decent wages is good economic development. Poverty-wage jobs only further the cycle of economic insecurity as evidenced by the trends toward growing poverty and decreasing wages. IDAs were created to promote economic prosperity, but the prosperity generated by these subsidies seems to be benefiting only a few, mostly the businesses and corporations.

The Assembly has passed a comprehensive reform bill that would add transparency to how IDA funds are spent and require companies that receive assistance to deliver on their job creation promises and pay a decent wage. It’s time that the Senate did its part. The revitalization of our upstate communities is at stake.

Richard Lipsitz Jr.

Legislative Chairman, WNY Area Labor Federation