New York is losing Starwood Hotel’s global headquarters and its 800 jobs because its economic development incentives cannot compete with Connecticuts.

LoHud.com’s Ben Rubin reports that the company will move just 13 miles from Westchester to Stamford, CT.

He writes: “It wasn’t even close.  The efforts of state and county agencies in the past two years to keep Starwood Hotels’ global headquarters on this side of the border could not match Connecticut’s offer.

 “We have tried for two years to make this happen and fill the gap,” said Salvatore J. Carrera, Westchester County’s director of real estate and economic development. “And the gap was $40 million.”

 Wednesday’s announcement that Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. would move from White Plains to Stamford, Conn., reinforced the view of many real estate and development experts that New York stood little chance in an incentives fight with Connecticut.

 “New York state and Westchester don’t have the programs and incentives to compete with the state of Connecticut, plain and simple,” said William V. Cuddy Jr., an executive vice president at CB Richard Ellis Inc. “No one should be shocked if this is the first of subsequent relocations.”

Read the story.

Joseph Spector reports in today’s LoHud.com - “State lawmakers yesterday called on Gov. David Paterson to sign legislation that would overhaul the state’s scandal-scarred public authorities after they released documents that show Paterson’s counsel is critical of the bill.

Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, D-Greenburgh, and state Sen. Bill Perkins, D-Harlem, have pressed Paterson in recent days to support the legislation, which they say is a key step in reforming public authorities.

But Paterson, while saying this week he supports 90 percent of what is proposed, said he may seek changes to the bill.”

Read the rest of the story click here.

As the battle over IDA reform continues the Buffalo News supplies two intresting and differing opinions.

Renee A. Filip: How the Erie County Legislature failed taxpayers

Angelo Vellake: Prevailing wage, apprenticeship programs beneficial

Liz Bengamin of The Daily News writes today - “Today’s Siena poll finds a whopping 77 percent of New Yorkers are furious that the Senate - as the question was posed - “wasted more than a month of valuable time accomplishing nothing.”

(Well, when you put it that way, who wouldn’t be angry?)

Sixty-two percent of those polled said they believe most voters will remember the stalemate when all 62 senators come up for re-election next year, and 40 percent say they would vote for a major party challenger to their local lawmaker (assuming there was one) if the election were held today.

“Voters from every party and every region overwhelmingly reject the notion that it was good that Senators took the time to resolve their differences,” said Siena NY poll spokesman Steve Greenberg.

“Rather, there is real anger at senators - regardless of the voters’ party affiliation or region. Although voters have long demonstrated particularly short memories, most feel that their fellow voters will remember the Senate fight next November and a plurality are already prepared to vote out incumbent senators.”

To read the rest of Liz’s comments click here.

To read the poll data from Siena College click here.

Proposals would add to projects’ costs

Matthew Spina of the Buffalo News writes - “State legislation that would let industrial development agencies again offer tax-exempt financing to not-for-profit organizations has stalled in Albany by proposed reforms — one in particular:

Forcing those beneficiaries to pay the prevailing wage to the construction workers on their projects.

Lawyers for the Erie County IDA and County Executive Chris Collins recently proposed a way around the roadblock. They drafted a measure to let a special unit of Erie County’s IDA, rather than the IDA itself, arrange the cheaper, tax-exempt financing that hospitals, schools and colleges prefer for expansions.

Other counties are taking similar paths. All Collins and the county IDA needed was the County Legislature to go along. Then the tax-exempt financing arranged through the IDA’s “Industrial Land Development Corp.” would pass muster with the Internal Revenue Service.”

To read the rest of the story click here.

$2.5 Billion of Important Projects on Hold Due to the State’s Failure to Re-Authorize IDA Financing for Non-Profit Organizations

The state economy is losing more than $2.5 billion in economic stimulus and essential social services are being compromised as a result of the state’s failure to re-authorize IDA-financing for non-profit organizations, according to a coalition of business, municipal and nonprofit community groups.

“New York needs the jobs and the $2.5 billion in economic activity that IDA civic-facility projects would provide. The legislature must act to allow these vital projects to go forward to benefit our communities and create good jobs for New Yorkers,” Kenneth Adams, President & CEO of The Business Council of New York State.

Across the state new construction and expansion projects for nursing homes, hospitals, group homes, affordable housing, YMCAs, Cerebral Palsy Centers, and many more quality of life projects have been stalled since the expiration last year of a state law authorizing local Industrial Development Agencies (IDAs) to finance not-for-profit construction projects. The law had been in place since 1986.

For a sample listing of some regional projects that have been affected by the expiration of the law and read the rest of the press release click here.

The following op-ed written by Kenneth Adams, president and CEO of The Business Council of New York State, Inc. appeared in today’s New York Post.

“Albany lawmakers apparently aren’t satisfied with passing a budget that raises many taxes, discouraging investment in New York. They are also considering a number of proposals advanced by organized labor and other special interests that could do even more harm to the state’s economy.

Among them are:

* A bill that would substantially raise the unemployment-insurance tax to pay for increased benefits. New York’s employers paid $2.3 billion in unemployment-insurance taxes in 2008, a total that would rise by nearly 15 percent in a single year under the legislation, followed by additional increases in subsequent years due to the “indexing” of benefits.

* A bill to require that “prevailing wages” — essentially, union scale — be paid on all Industrial Development Agency projects. IDA’s are quasi-governmental state agencies that make private-sector development affordable by lowering the costs of financing the projects. The measure would render worthless this job-creating financing method, because projects would cost too much.

* Bills to require New York employers to provide paid family leave — through an enhanced insurance benefit — for workers who care for family members in certain situations. New York would be one of only four states with such a requirement, harming its competitiveness.

To read the rest of Adam’s op-ed click here.

With Democrats in control of both houses of the legislature and the Governor’s office, this session could produce a flood of legislation that has been stalled in the past. As Jacob Gershman points out in the today’s New York Post many of these bills could have a negative impact on the state’s business climate and economy.  Read the full column here.

The following is an editorial from the Buffalo News.

Changes to incentive program would stall development goals

“Harmful legislation to reform the state’s industrial development agencies is liable to pass in Albany before long. If it is signed into law, New York can kiss goodbye any hopes it has for serious economic development. Assemblyman Sam Hoyt and Sen. Antoine Thompson, the Buffalo Democrats who sponsored this bill, need to back off it.

It’s not that IDAs don’t need reform. They do. Given any IDA’s ability to grant tax breaks—thereby offloading those costs onto other taxpayers—the entire system needs to be overhauled to provide greater transparency and accountability. We have supported that aspect of this legislation in the past and we still do.

But, as it is currently designed, the bill is a proven job-killer. In addition to the necessary job of reform, the legislation also seeks to impose wage mandates that one study has shown will drive up business costs—and that, as the experience of one New York county already shows, will drive away prospects.

Given those facts, the only point of including the prevailing wage mandate is to curry favor with the labor unions it will benefit, at the expense of every New Yorker who hopes for a better job environment. And those New Yorkers should include those union members’ children, many of whom will likely have to leave the state to find financial success…”

To read the rest of the editorial click here.

The Op-ed section of the Buffalo News posted the following from George W. Walker III who co-owns a small family business in Pembroke.

“It is beyond comprehension that, in these desperate economic times, when New York State is in a financial disaster, Buffalo is the third-poorest city in America and all of Western New York is languishing on the brink of an outright depression, any legislator with integrity could support the so-called industrial development agency reform bill.

Yet, in such times, Assemblyman Sam Hoyt and Sen. Antoine Thompson, both Buffalo Democrats, have the arrogance and audacity to sponsor legislation that would devastate efforts in upstate and Western New York to revitalize and preserve what’s left of an already deeply ailing economy. This in an economic and business environment that makes our state the laughingstock of the nation and — I would imagine — even of countries like China.

The prevailing wage mandates of Hoyt and Thompson will work directly against the need to grow our economies, removing one of our area’s most significant competitive advantages — the availability of a quality work force at competitive wages.

The Center for Governmental Research has determined that requiring IDA projects to pay prevailing union-scale wages, as the Hoyt/Thompson legislation proposes, would increase the wage cost in Buffalo by 23 percent, when market-based wages are already 6 percent higher than in comparably sized cities. And prevailing wage requirements would boost an average project’s cost by 28 percent in Buffalo, according to the study.

In addition, requiring all employees involved in IDA projects to be paid at least $15.43 an hour for a 37.5-hour week, the Buffalo Metropolitan Statistical Area’s median wage, regardless of skill set or job description, would seriously jeopardize many companies. These companies employ people who pay taxes; they care for their families without the need for unemployment compensation and public assistance. They may aspire to higher wages.

But such increases can and will come from improving their skill sets, advancing their training and education and from a healthy economy in which demand for labor results in increased wages. If there’s no work, there’s no demand. If there’s no demand, there’s no hope of compensation improvement. Employment comes from employers.

Why would we want to hamstring employers in the current economic climate? Opening every possible avenue for businesses to do business would be an immediate and demonstrable stimulus that pays more in the long run than artificial, mandated wage minimums at such high levels.

One would think, if only in their own self-interest, our legislators of both parties would recognize that a new era is coming. Whether they are re-elected to be a part of that new era will depend on their integrity, courage and vision to address new realities. If they do not, they may discover that employment issues have come to their own doorsteps”