Comptroller review questions connection between tax breaks and job creation
Story Created:
Jul 13, 2011 at 6:09 PM EDT
Story Updated:
Jul 13, 2011 at 6:11 PM EDT
NEW YORK STATE (WKTV) - State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says his latest review of industrial development agencies finds no connection between granting bigger tax breaks to employers and the creation of jobs they promised in exchange for the benefits.
DiNapoli says his annual review of the local entities that provide the breaks shows that changes are needed. However, the man who heads up one such agency in central New York says the breaks are needed.
"Practically speaking, they're virtually impossible to do without having that offer, because others are offering it and the cost of doing business is what it is," says Mark Feane, executive director of the Herkimer County Industrial Development Agency.
Feane says the breaks are necessary, and sometimes even a necessary evil.
"I would keep incentives right off the table if they weren't necessary, but when they become necessary and if it's the difference between having the company bring in those 40, 100, 200 jobs...I think it's well worth having in the tool box," says Feane.
Feane says that, most often, the companies offered tax breaks deliver on the jobs promised, and often exceed that number.
He says that Granny's Kitchens, of Frankfort, employed 43 people in 1999. They received tax breaks in exchange for the promise to grow 11 jobs. They now employ 330 people.
Feane says there were other job benchmarks in the 10 year period the incentive period lasted, but nothing that would bring the company up to the more than 300 people they currently employ.
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