The first annual Unidad Latina conference held in New York City this weekend was an enormous success that brought together hundreds of people from the Hispanic community in New York, including leaders from business, education, health care and government to discuss ways to promote economic growth and job creation. The conference was organized by the New York State Senate and the Hispanic Federation.

“This conference was an impressive gathering of bright, talented people who came together to discuss how to make the Latino community more prosperous,” Senate Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos said. “Every conference room and ballroom was filled with people committed to giving Hispanic-owned entrepreneurs the resources they need to grow and improving the quality of life for Latinos.”

Among the bipartisan group of legislators who attended were: state Senators Charles Fuschillo, John Flanagan, Jack Martins, Martin Golden, Jim Alesi, Lee Zeldin, Jeff Klein, Diane Savino and David Carlucci; Assemblymembers Nicole Malliotakis, Guillermo Linares, Naomi Rivera, former Assemblyman Roberto Ramirez and former New York City Councilman Fernando Ferrer.

Workshop participants included: Alexander Saavedra, Vice President/Director of SEEDCO; Edwin Melendez, Director of Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College; Jorge Martinez, a Trustee in the Village of Freeport; Alfredo Placeres, President of the NYS Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; and Ken Pokalsky, senior Director of Government Affairs for the Business Council of the State of New York. The workshop was moderated by Senator Jim Alesi.
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Cara Matthews reports on pressconnects.com - “New York needs to encourage entrepreneurship, help businesses export internationally and place more emphasis on higher education if it wants to succeed in a global economy, a State University of New York report released Wednesday recommended.

Some parts of the state have been more successful than others in competing in a global economy, according to the SUNY Levin Institute and Center for an Urban Future, which was commissioned to do the report. New York lost 50 percent of its manufacturing jobs between 1970 and 2000, and another 39 percent from 2000 to 2010, outpacing most other states…

“For our state to grow and prosper, it is essential that we identify ways for all regions in the state to tap into the global economy,” SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher said in a statement.

New York’s public and private higher-education institutions “offer an opportunity for job growth in emerging industries,” said Heather Briccetti, acting president and CEO of the state Business Council.

A disincentive in New York is the cost of doing business, she said. The Tax Foundation, a national group, has labeled New York as having the worst tax climate in the country.”

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The New York State Higher Education Initiative (NYSHEI) is now a member of the Business Council of New York State.

“This a tactical decision that should bolster our advocacy efforts by opening doors to new collaborative relationships, amplifying our voice, and establishing our credibility as a committed actor in improving the state’s economic climate,” said NYSHEI Executive Director Jason Kramer.

“Last year, NYSHEI made the strategic move to promote ARIA not merely as beneficial to higher education, but also as critical to developing knowledge-based economy. This approach has paid significant dividends in winning supporters to our cause. Joining the Business Council is one way to take this approach to the next level,” said Kramer.

The Business Council of New York State, Inc., is the largest business organization in New York State. Its membership is made up of thousands of member companies, as well as local chambers of commerce and professional and trade associations. Though 72 percent of their members are small businesses, BCNYS also represents some of the largest and most important corporations in the world, including IBM, Verizon, Eastman Kodak, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Corning, Pfizer and many more.

The BCNYS also counts among its members diverse groups such as the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities, the Association of Proprietary Colleges, the Center for Government Research, the American Chemistry Association, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the Medical Society of New York, the College Board, the New York Press Association, and many others.

The primary function of the Business Council is to serve as an advocate in the state political and policy-making arena, working for a healthier business climate, economic growth, and jobs.

“The mission of NYSHEI, as embodied in ARIA, closely complements the work of the Business Council. I believe that by partnering with them NYSHEI stands to gain access, influence and critical assistance. As NYSHEI aggressively pursues state support for the information infrastructure of academic and research libraries amidst a darkening state fiscal climate, relationships with energetic players like BCNYS make ever more sense,” concluded Kramer.

Maury Thompson writes in the Glens Falls Post-Star - “Communication and cooperation will insure that Adirondack communities don’t fall through the cracks in a new state economic development strategy built around 10 regional economic development councils, the state’s top economic development official said Monday.

Under the new strategy, the Adirondack Park is cut up among three separate economic development councils, causing some local government officials and advocacy groups to question whether the vision for development in the park will be fragmented.

Kenneth Adams, president and chief executive officer of Empire State Development Corp., said he has advised that the best way to prevent fragmentation is for economic officials of Adirondack communities to create a “working group” that advises each of the three councils on regional development issues.

“Economic development in the Adirondack Park is a special situation, so I would suggest that they create a working group and focus on that within the structure of the regional councils,” he said, during an impromptu interview at Glens Falls City Hall after a meeting with Glens Falls Mayor John “Jack” Diamond.”

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Recipe for high-end jobs for Rochester area and across the state

In an op-ed that appeared in the Sunday Democrat and Chronicle, Heather Briccetti, acting-president and CEO of the Business Council stress the importance of fostering the transfer on technology from our colleges and universities to the workforce. Although she highlights the Greater Rochester area has a champion of this effort, she uses the examples to show how this can be done by many institutions from SUNY Stony Brook on Long Island to Syracuse University and Cornell, in Central New York, RPI in the Capital Region and Clarkson University in the North Country.

“Public and private sector leaders worldwide understand that innovation is the key to competitiveness.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s regional approach to economic development is an offshoot of that realization. Part of this new approach must include the transfer of technology (TOT) from universities to the private sector.

Producing innovative, highly applicable research at our colleges and encouraging collaboration with local companies will open a commercialization pipeline through which new goods and services can be developed. It’s critical for every region of the state to foster these partnerships: Research shows that New York has fallen behind peer states in terms of venture capital investment.

To reverse this trend, vertical integration of economic development with a region’s research universities, four-year and community colleges must be leveraged.

State policy and local actions need to focus on attracting or expanding strategic employers. As stated in a Public Policy Institute report, “A global research institute for each technology should be established that is open to all researchers in the state and actively seeks to maximize successful commercialization of cutting-edge ideas.”

Rochester has the potential to be a front-runner in the innovation economy, given its top-notch universities and world-renowned companies.

Rochester Institute of Technology has an Intellectual Property Management Office that offers services including marketability assessments and technology transfer strategy development. RIT’s Albert J. Simone Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is linked to other universities across the state and offers programs that help people understand the value of their patents.

Vnomics, a Rochester-based company, uses a patented technology that was developed at RIT’s Center for Integrated Manufacturing Studies. The innovative technology was based around Department of Defense research conducted at RIT. The original intent of the product was to provide diagnostics for vehicles on the front lines to ensure they did not have any mechanical problems. When its private-sector applicability was realized, the technology was marketed to commercial tractor-trailer companies.

The University of Rochester is also making tremendous progress in the way of TOT — it has two Offices of Technology Transfer and has been responsible for more than 40 start-up companies over the last decade.

Excell Partners Inc. is an economic development partnership that was established in collaboration with the university and the state to provide financing for high-tech companies in upstate New York. It has provided $2.3 million in funding to 21 seed stage technology companies.

Many nations are replicating the characteristics that once formed the basis of the American advantage — open markets, investment in research and development, strong education systems and skilled workers.

When you take a regional approach to economic development and you combine TOT with global information networks, then you can compete on cost and quality and create high-value jobs.

David Seifman writes in the New York Post - “Blame it on the high cost of living, the lure of country life or even the weather, but nearly a third of the city’s own employees are hightailing out of here first chance they get.

Figures compiled by the city’s five pension systems show that 91,237 of the 296,914 payments sent out last month, or 31 percent, went to addresses outside New York state.

By comparison, only 23 percent of state-government retirees had left New York as of last year.

The city and state don’t tax the pension checks of government retirees.
But those retirees still generate a lot of economic activity. Last month alone, the city’s pension funds paid out $851 million, with more than $230 million headed out of town.”

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Eric Kriss reports in the New York Post - “Taxed-out New Yorkers are voting with their feet, with a staggering 1.6 million residents fleeing the state over the last decade, a new report found.

That’s as if the entire populations of Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, White Plains and West Babylon combined had packed up and left.
For the second consecutive decade, New York led the nation in the percentage of residents leaving for other states, according to the report by the Empire Center for State Policy…

Gov. Cuomo has tried to tackle the root causes of the population decline, particularly upstate, which has been hit the hardest.
In fact, the state’s big-business lobby said the report revealed a “tale of two states.”

“Domestic out-migration is predominantly upstate,” said Ken Pokalsky, senior director of government affairs for The Business Council of New York State. Economically, “Upstate’s been flat and falling,” he said.

A spokesman for Cuomo said the new administration is attempting to reverse the decades-long flight problem.

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A Population Migration Overview

E.J. McMahon and Robert Scardamalia of the Empire Center released a new report detailing the outward migration of people from New York over the last decade.

“New York lost a net 1.6 million residents to other states between 2000 and 2010, according to 2010 Census data. The domestic migration outflow, coupled with a slowdown in foreign immigration, ensured that New York’s share of the nation’s population continued to slide in the first decade of the 21st century.

But the migration trend is also nothing new.

This paper, first in a series using the latest census data to explore population trends in the Empire State, traces the ebb and flow of migration trends to and from New York in the past 50 years. To fill gaps in the historical statewide data, we rely on a combination of decennial census records, annual population estimates and state vital statistics dating back to 1960. Our findings:

•Since 1960, New York has lost 7.3 million residents to the rest of the country. This was partially offset by an influx of 4.8 million foreign immigrants, resulting in a net decline of 2.5 million residents.
•New York’s average annual domestic migration loss – the difference between people moving in from other states and out to other states — jumped from about 60,000 people in the 1960s to an all-time high of nearly 237,000 in the 1970s. The state’s domestic migration outflows have averaged between 130,000 and 160,000 a year since 1980.
•For a second consecutive decade, New York’s net population loss due to domestic migration was the highest of any state as a percentage of population.
•New York’s net migration loss – the sum of domestic and foreign migration – increased over the last decade to its highest level since the 1970s. Thirteen states had negative net migration between 2000 and 2010, and only three (Illinois, Louisiana and Michigan) lost a bigger share of their populations to migration than New York.”

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Ken Lovett of the Daily News reports - “Gov. Cuomo reached a tentative contract deal Wednesday with the state’s largest public employees union - an agreement that should avert thousands of layoffs.

The leaders of CSEA agreed to forego across the board raises the first three of the five-year deal - and accept nine unpaid days off during the first two years.

In addition, employees will kick in more for their health insurance.”

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The following is part of an editorial by the Buffalo News - “It is predictable and maybe even understandable that New York State United Teachers and the Buffalo Teachers Federation are upset over the turn taken by state government since January. They have for so long been the tail that wagged the dog that it’s hard to comprehend when the dog finally decides to exert some influence.

The dog has certainly been acting up this year. As News Albany Bureau Chief Tom Precious pointed out last week, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the State Legislature have had the temerity to cut state aid for schools, refuse to extend the income tax surcharge on wealthy New Yorkers and agree tentatively on a property tax cap for New Yorkers…

But many taxpayers have been shouting for years, even decades, that New York has been going in the wrong direction.

What else is it when taxpayers are funding elective plastic surgery for teachers, providing for retirements years earlier than private-sector workers and paying for teachers’ health care in retirement? What is it when state law discourages honest bargaining between public-sector unions and taxing entities?”

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