Adrianne Shropshire

More Calls for Accountability

I posted awhile back on growing concerns in Yonkers and elsewhere in Westchester about large scale developments that are sucking up public money with little to no returns. This week The Buffalo News printed an opinion piece that calls the question on clawbacks, the mechanism that allows a government entity to take back all or a portion of subsidies from a company for failure to meet promised goals.

Here in the city the question about benefits, accountability, and transparency have come up in many forums. But around the state communities are asking the same questions and have found an important ally as mentioned in The Buffalo News article. As first reported in The Crain's Insider, State Comptroller Alan Hevesi is conducting an audit of local Industrial Development Agencies (IDA) to determine their effectiveness or, as the preliminary results would indicate, their scandalousness. Giving money (and more money, and more money) to companies that promise the world and deliver nothing seems to be one of the findings, but the general sloppiness of reporting, tracking, and low to no expectations of subsidy recipients will undoubtedly be high on the list for a failing grade.

As the movement for greater accountability and higher standards for our economic development strategies grows, we will undoubtedly hear more from both upstate and downstate communities about what is going wrong and ideas for how to make it right.

In the coming weeks IDA reform legislation will be introduced in both the Senate and the Assembly. If you could give your legislators the Top 10 Ways to Make Businesses Receiving Subsidies More Accountable, what would be on the list?

Adrianne Shropshire: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 9:48 AM, Mar 29, 2006 in Cities | Economic Opportunity | Economy | Employment | Fiscal Responsibility | Government Accountability | New York | public services
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