Relates to waiving school taxes by a town, city, or county industrial development agency

• Democratic15
• Republican2

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why James Skoufis says this is needed

The stated purpose of industrial development agencies, or IDAs, is to incentivize economic development by attracting businesses and creating new jobs. The incentives offered by IDAs often include the waiving of all or some state or local taxes, including those taxes that would have otherwise been received by the local school district or districts. IDAs haVe been around since 1969, and since that time, they have offered billions of dollars of incentives to large multi-national corporations. The only data the state receives regarding job creation and economic benefits as a result of IDA activity is self-reported by the corpo- rations, and IDAs' exact effectiveness in this area is unknown. The past few years have been very challenging for students and educators alike. New York State is experiencing a teacher shortage, and many schools lack the resources to attract and retain educators. State offi- cials have estimated that NYS will need 180,000 new teachers in the next decade. This bill proposes a simple means of increasing funding to school districts. While the impact of IDAs remains largely unknown, we cannot overstate the importance of education and the impact of good teachers and a strong school district. Preventing IDAs from waiving school taxes will have a massive impact on our state's children, and the amount of money is negligible to the large, multi-national corporations that bene- fit from agreements with IDAs.

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.