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The
Five Borough Report
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Interesting Reports
Economic Development Corporation
Does Not Provide Full Discolsure for Biz Retention Programs
New York City’s Economic Development
Corporation fails to give accurate reports on its business retention programs,
according to a report by the Independent Budget Office. The EDC, which
offers businesses incentives such as tax abatements and low-cost loans
in order to stay in the city, often issues reports that are late, and missing
data or contain misleading or incomplete data. According to the IBO, the
EDC understates the fiscal cost to the city of job retention agreements,
by including information for just a sample period of the agreement and
by omitting the tax revenue the city would have collected without a offering
a tax break. On the other hand, the IBO charges that the EDC overstates
tax retention by taking credit for the tax revenue collected, as if the
businesses would not have paid taxes otherwise. The report also criticizes
the EDC for overstating job creation, using inconsistent numbers and for
keeping some terms of agreements - particularly terms of performance -
closed to public scrutiny.
New York Leads Nation
in Domestic Partner Benefits
New York is one of eight states
that lead the nation in domestic partner benefits for employees, according
to a report by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute.
The policy was negotiated through union contracts and extended to the rest
of the state workforce by the Governor in 1995 (with the notable exception
of the Republican-controlled Senate, which has refused coverage for its
employees). According to the report, “[These] eight state governments are
among the largest individual employers to adopt some form of domestic partner
policy,” which is important, the report stresses, because of the precedent
set by the states and for the statistics concerning cost and use of such
domestic partner policies. New York leads the states in terms of employees
who take advantage of the policy, with one percent identifying a domestic
partner, of the same or different gender, to receive health care benefits.
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