Support the IDA Campaign

How and Why YOU Should Support IDA Reform


Get Involved

Attend a local event.

Hearings, educational forums, and strategy sessions on accountable economic development are being held statewide by labor unions, community organizations, and religious groups. For information on an event near you e-mail Sadaf@nyjwj.org.

Host an event.

The Initiative for Development Accountability is building strength statewide by providing grassroots organizations with tools to support accountable development efforts in their communities. For more information on hosting an event for your union, community group, or congregation e-mail Sadaf@nyjwj.org

1) If you are concerned about good jobs and fair wages

Industrial Development Agencies are an important economic development tool to promote job creation in our communities. We all want to create jobs, of course, but we need to make sure we are using public money to create good paying jobs with benefits. One way to do this is to promote and protect the gains made by unions. Unions are critical to providing good paying jobs and opportunities for working families.

We think that jobs created through IDA assistance should pay a living and/or prevailing wage. Why should we be subsidizing poverty-wage jobs? We are also calling for provisions that would require that when possible developers hire locally, giving workers in the area the first opportunities for work.

2) If you are concerned about the environment

We believe that IDA’s should not be subsidizing sprawl. Developers should be encouraged to build in already-developed areas, not in undeveloped areas.

We argue that subsidies should not be granted to projects that are not served by existing water and sewer infrastructure unless there is no viable alternative.

We also support making sure no developers get subsidies if they consistently violate state and local environmental protection laws and other important laws. We ask that subsidies are withheld from developers that have a history of violating environmental protection laws, zoning laws or local ordinances.

3) If you are concerned about funding for public education, healthcare, social services and affordable housing

In much of the state, public services like education, healthcare and affordable housing are under funded and are constantly on the chopping block to balance budgets. At the same time, Industrial Development Agencies are giving hundreds of millions of dollars in local property and sales tax breaks.

When done responsibly, this can help increase economic activity and give local governments more money to spend on vital services.

But when abused, the IDAs waste taxpayer dollars that could be going to vital services and do not provide a good return on our public investment. We believe that with increased public input and oversight and mechanisms that allow the public to get its money back if a company doesn't live up to its end of the bargain can protect us from that abuse and protect vital government services.

4) If you are concerned about transparency and community input

Since IDAs give businesses significant local tax breaks, we must make sure that local communities get the promised benefits for sacrificing this much needed revenue. For too long the case has been that communities aren’t aware of proposed IDA deals until the very end of the process, when it’s too late to have significant community input. At this point, most decisions have been made without the community's input.

We think that before subsidies are granted, developers need to produce a Community Impact Report which can be an essential tool in assessing the positive and negative impacts of a project. The CIR would study, among other things, the quality of jobs created or retained, the effect on housing in the area, the effect on other businesses, the effect on open space and the effect on local infrastructure.

This and an improved hearing process would make it possible for communities to examine how the proposed development will benefit the community and not just the developers.