Community and advocacy groups, Occupy Wall Street, and unemployed and underemployed activists gathered outside of Bank of America Merrill Lynch headquarters to demand the investment bank create jobs or return the public money it has received.
“Unemployed, underemployed and struggling New Yorkers have too often seen little benefit out of expensive corporate subsidy deals, while having to fight for every penny to fund essential public services,” said Nathalie Alegre, an organizer with ALIGN. “Today we say: another way of doing things is possible, another city is possible!”
ALIGN: The Alliance for a Greater New York is hosting its annual Movement Builders Awards this evening, April 25 at 6 pm. The event is a celebration of leaders from labor, community and business who have been instrumental in building a movement for a more equitable economy, a more accountable democracy and a more sustainable environment for all New Yorkers.
Advocates from ALIGN praised the increased scrutiny of the New York City Industrial Development Agency (IDA) through a new audit by Comptroller John Liu’s office. The audit examined the IDA’s project financing, evaluation, and monitoring process.
More than a dozen elected officials, community, labor, and advocacy organizations sent a letter today to the Authorities Budget Office requesting an investigation of a tax break deal between the County of Monroe Industrial Development Agency (COMIDA) and Ward’s Natural Science, a division of VWR Educational LLC.
A new report analyzing the performance standards and enforcement policies of the states’ major economic development programs was released today by Good Jobs First, a non-profit, non-partisan research center based in Washington, DC. The study, Money-Back Guarantees for Taxpayers: Clawbacks and Other Enforcement Safeguards in State Economic Development Subsidy Programs, shows that most states are highly inconsistent in how they monitor, verify and enforce the terms of job subsidies that cost taxpayers billions of dollars per year. New York State had one of the poorest track records, receiving a score of D+ and ranking 45th out of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia.