Initiative for Development Accountability

Background on the IDA Campaign


In a state that has the widest gap between rich and poor in the country, where countless good-paying jobs are lost every year, and where sprawl is endemic, it is imperative that progressives formulate an economic development policy that begins to address these problems.

That’s why NY Jobs with Justice is spearheading a campaign to make sure that projects granted tax breaks would have to create the jobs they promised or give our money back, would have to pay decent wages and detail and minimize any negative community and environmental impacts.

Industrial Development Agencies (IDAs) are the main source of economic development subsidies at the city, town, village and county level throughout New York, granting hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks to spur job creation and retention each year.

Even though IDAs are all set up and run locally, they are authorized and regulated by State Law. We have an important window of opportunity to reform the process and make sure that public money is not used to subsidize poverty wage jobs or projects that have a harmful impact on the local community or environment.

The expiration of key sections of the IDA law in July of 2005 gave us the opportunity to reform IDAs at the state level. Any reforms implemented at the state level would set a standard for the IDAs across the state.

We began by working with like minded groups around the state like (groups). Our goal was to push for a key set of reforms including:

  • Making sure that the jobs created pay a decent wage
  • Making sure that a significant percentage of the jobs created go to area residents
  • Making sure that companies and IDAs are reporting adequately on the terms of the deals, and whether companies are living up to their end of the bargain
  • Setting up a procedure for recovery of the tax breaks if companies do not live up to their bargain
  • Implementing a Community Impact Report procedure that allows communities to play a role in the process of developing projects
  • Adding environmental protections to the IDA law

The coalition talked to local legislators about the importance of these reforms, signed post cards, organized press conferences, sent letters and more. While our reforms were not incorporated in 2005, we got people’s attention and the Senate and Assembly agreed to a short, one year, extension of the current law to examine reform priorities.

This one year window has given us the opportunity to build a stronger coalition, develop our own specific reform priorities and develop a one-year campaign timeline that will hopefully result in the reforms being implemented.