By:Nick Buglione
While 55 counties in New York are home to 72 Empire Zones, areas in which the state offers tax incentives and other benefits to encourage business, Nassau has none, and County Executive Thomas Suozzi wants one.
Speaking in front of a vacant lot off Sunrise Highway in Freeport last week, Suozzi continued his crusade, calling on the state Legislature to designate the area as an Empire Zone.
Nassau County is a wonderful place, but we-ve stopped growing, Suozzi said, adding that the county could use the tax incentives to jump-start business and create jobs in some of its poorer neighborhoods. Suffolk County, our neighbor to the east, has three [Empire Zones]. New York City, our neighbor to the west, has 10.
Along with Freeport, the county executive said he thinks Roosevelt, Hempstead, Inwood, Uniondale and New Castle are prime candidates for the state program, which was initiated in the mid-1980s.
The village downtown was in decline for about 30 years, said Freeport Mayor William Glacken, explaining why the village began efforts about four years ago to revitalize business. The mom-and-pop shops were getting swallowed up by larger retailers in the Roosevelt Field, Green Acres and Sunrise malls. Receiving Empire Zone distinction would certainly help Freeport-s push for economic growth, Glacken said.
Nassau was one of 25 municipalities that applied for one of six new zones created in 2002, but it lost out to Madison, Washington, Wayne, Genesee, Orleans and Rensselaer counties. Nassau wasn-t given a reason why its application was denied, Suozzi said, though he said that the perception that the county is a stronghold of the rich could be what-s holding it back. People may think that Nassau County is a wealthy place that has no problems, but there are places in Nassau County that are in need of economic growth, he said.
Other elected officials, however, think politics is the real reason the county doesn-t have an Empire Zone. Politics appears to be an ingredient that has really taken away our opportunity, said state Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg (D-Long Beach). I have advocated and written letters and have repeatedly requested the consideration.
Since Democrats control the county and the governor is a Republican, the county is losing out, according to Weisenberg.
Tom Dunham, a spokesman for state Sen. Dean Skelos, said the notion that Empire Zones are handed out as political favors is a farce. If you look at the six that were created last time, they did not all go to quote-unquote Republican areas, Dunham said, adding that the senator too has lobbied to bring Empire Zones to Nassau County. It-s the senator-s position that there should be one new zone created for every county that doesn-t already have one.
The Empire Zone Designation Board, which comprises six people, approves all Empire Zone applications. The governor, representatives from the Division of Budget, Taxation and Finance and Department of Labor, the Senate and Assembly each pick two members. That board was created to divorce politics from the process, Dunham said.
Still, some believe that Suozzi, a Democrat, has created a rift with powerful state legislators like Skelos, who is the Senate-s deputy majority leader. Suozzi has recently butted heads with Skelos on issues such as the creation of a Sewer and Storm Water Authority.
Meanwhile, the Empire Zone program has come under fire, following a March state comptroller report that found poor oversight of its tax credits. An audit of eight zones found that they are poorly administered and don-t hold firms that receive tax breaks accountable for actually producing jobs, one of the chief reasons the program was started.
Bad accounting for the amount of tax breaks given out makes it difficult to determine how much the program costs and what taxpayers are getting for their investment, state Comptroller Alan Hevesi said.
The state Department of Economic Development, which oversees the Empire Zones, maintains that the audit is inaccurate. We have a fundamental problem with the comptroller-s audit, said Chapin Fay, a department spokesman. The program rules are simple: a company creates jobs, it receives benefits. It-s disappointing that the comptroller chose to issue a political report instead of working with us to improve the program.
New Yorkers know that Empire Zones create jobs, Fay added, and they know that we are working hard to make this program even stronger.
