The Syracuse Post-Standard recently published an updated, on-line database titled “Empire Zone Winners,” which exposes taxpayer losses from this broken subsidy program. For years, advocacy groups and elected officials have called for the program’s end, or at least major reforms.

The Post-Standard’s database lists Empire Zone tax breaks that 4,990 businesses expected to claim on their 2007 taxes. The database is searchable by geographic area (broken into Empire Zones) and for each company includes: its rank in NY (in terms of the amount of credit given), the amount of tax credits for 2007, the number of full time jobs at the company, the number of new jobs created in 2007, average wage, total payroll, and total investment.

In New York City, a number of projects demonstrate the program’s dysfunction in providing tax dollars for few or no jobs and little or no investment, for low-paying jobs, and, sometimes, to bad employers. Among the many:

Blauners, LLC, a real-estate investment company, in Hunts Point, Bronx, expected to claim $1.26 million for only three jobs with an average wage of $8/hour. That’s about $420,000 per job. To add insult to injury, the company only invested $231,819 at the site.

B & H Foto in North Brooklyn expected to claim a large credit of $2.6 million for 190 jobs with an average wage of $9/hour, with an investment of only $913,640. Last week, the company settled an EEOC lawsuit by agreeing to provide $4.3 million to Hispanic workers who were denied promotions and paid less than their non-Hispanic counterparts.

FC Gowanus Associates, which shares the same parent company as the developer of Brooklyn’s controversial Atlantic Yards project, expected a smaller tax credit of about $174,000, but like a number of other companies, it had zero jobs, and zero investment when claiming the credit.

Last week, state legislators agreed to some basic reforms, including disallowing incentives for some companies that did not invest at least as much as they received in tax breaks, and ending the program one year ahead of schedule, on June 30, 2010. Yet, despite action to scale back the program, New York City has taken efforts to expand it by allowing certain projects outside of Empire Zones to nevertheless secure Empire Zone benefits. Given the nature of some of the projects in the Post-Standard’s database, this doesn’t seem like the wisest use of taxpayer funds.

NYS Senate Majority Leader Skelos

After years of criticism from New York State watchdog groups like the Fiscal Policy Institute and certain elected officials, a high-ranking state legislator is chiming in on demands that the wasteful Empire Zone (EZ) program be drastically reformed. Last week, State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos issued a press release detailing the Senate’s new “Job Creation Plan,” which calls for reforms to increase accountability in the Empire Zone program and an elimination of it upon its 2011 expiration.

The president of the powerful Partnership for New York City – a business lobby group – issued a brief statement saying it supports Skelos’ call for an end to “a program that has spiraled out of control and provides almost $500 million a year in indiscriminate tax breaks to businesses without consideration of their contribution to the state’s economic growth.”

As we’ve blogged previously, too many businesses receive Empire Zone benefits without creating new, good jobs, or sometimes any jobs at all. Additionally, the program has strayed far from its original intent of targeting private investment and job growth to the state’s most economically depressed neighborhoods. With new Empire Zones designated frequently, there is now at least one in every county. Making matters worse, some business can receive benefits even if they fall outside of a zone.

Senator Skelos and the Senate majority have not discussed better targeting of tax breaks to truly needy areas, and they have not detailed how they will ensure greater accountability (for however long the program exists) so that only businesses that create high-quality jobs receive breaks. Rather, they focus on a plan for how the state could use the money saved from reform and program elimination, supposedly to lessen the tax burden across the board, especially for manufacturers, small businesses and high tech companies.

The details of the Senate’s plan will surely come under debate, but its focus on reining in Empire Zone benefits and letting the program expire is sound. It seems that officials across the political spectrum and advocates with very different agendas finally may be reaching some consensus that the Empire Zone program needs drastic changes, or it needs to be eliminated. Reaching an agreement out how to apply the savings will be a different story.