ALBANY – In the final days of the 2022 legislative session, as Parliament House is seething with frantic efforts to strengthen gun control, abortion rights and environmental regulations, lawmakers New York law received an emotional email.
Governor Kathy Hochul has asked them to fast-track legislation that would allow billions of dollars in corporate subsidies to attract semiconductor plants to New York, according to a message from Democratic leaders in the Senate. state.
The chip subsidy bill, which designates a US$10 billion tax break over 20 years for chipmakers, was passed by the Senate on its final scheduled date after Ms. Hochul invoked the proceedings. urgent, called “message needed”. The guild quickly followed suit.
No public hearing, where criticism can be made and taxpayer protections contemplated, has been given on the matter.
“There really isn’t anyone with a straight face who can look at anyone in the state and tell them this new program has been publicly debated and that there has been a proper professional and public analysis done. implemented,” said State Senator James Skoufis, who, said. like Mrs. Hochul, a Democrat. “That sunlight doesn’t exist in the room where this show is cooked up.”
Hochul’s approach to the subsidy package seems to fit a pattern familiar to longtime Albany observers, where billions of dollars of taxpayer dollars can be redirected. direction or turn off in negotiations far from the public.
Ms. Hochul has vowed to change that culture, promising “a new era of transparency”. She says that “the days of three men in one room” – short for decision making like a star in Albany – are over. “There will be “accountability and zero tolerance for individuals who cross the line,” she said. An ethics watchdog in Albany with “real teeth.” Even term limits on her and other elected officials statewide.
“For me, it was very simple,” Hochul announced in her August inauguration speech, taking over from her predecessor Andrew M. Cuomo, who resigned amid the scandal. “We will focus on open, ethical governance that New Yorkers will trust.”
However, when Ms. Hochul faced her first general election challenge as governor in November, her promises of transparency and a culture of change appeared to be gone.
Time limits are never considered. Bills for chip subsidies and another major government grant – public subsidies for a new football stadium for her hometown team, the Buffalo Bills – emerged from her office after talks private judgement.
Her focus on “ethical management” was marred after her lieutenant governor, Brian Benjamin, resigned following his arrest on federal corruption charges. Ms. Hochul later admitted that the vetting process that led to Mr. Benjamin’s appointment was flawed. (Mr Benjamin has since been replaced, in office and on the ballot – thanks to a legislative mechanism that critics called abuse of power – by Antonio Delgado, who resigned from Congress to assume state office.)
And in Ms. Hochul’s first state budget, she exempted a huge sum from the independent oversight of the state censorship office and competitive bidding rules – amounting to a staggering $11 billion. out of the $220 billion in the state budget, based on state compiler.
Most of the $11 billion is earmarked for coronavirus costs and “unforeseeable emergencies,” officials said, but could be diverted to other uses at the discretion of the system. her director and budget director.
The office of the actuary, Thomas DiNapoli, expressed concern about the governor’s “lack of transparency”, warning in the official review of the state budget that the control of $11 billion was “almost complete”. entirely decided by the executive authority.”
In an email to Hochul’s top aides, Mr. DiNapoli’s first deputy, Pete Grannis, expressed disappointment that “little has been done to deliver on the promise” of promoting transparency and implementing policies. steps to restore New Yorkers’ confidence in government”.
The Legislature’s proposed budget would restore state status to some of the auditor’s pre-audit powers, which were removed under Mr. Cuomo; Ms. Hochul’s budget was stripped.
Hochul aides said the spending rules are in line with practices under previous governors and still allow auditors to examine payments and contracts made.
Ms. Hochul and her aides have defended their efforts to make Albany more transparent and accountable, pointing to what a spokeswoman, Hazel Crampton-Hays, described as “unethical behaviour. moral” is valid for 200 years in a state capital that has never had a woman in the lead.
“With less than a year in office, New York’s first female governor has assumed a centuries-old position,” said Ms. Crampton-Hays. release the governor’s tax returns and daily schedule.
In another development, aides noted that Ms. Hochul had succeeded in replacing the struggling Joint Committee on Public Ethics, which held its last regular meeting on the day she won the nomination. own party. The new ethics group, called the Ethics & Lobbying Committee in Government, will, for the first time, follow public records laws and be overseen by appointed commissioners. This committee must be endorsed by an independent panel of deans of law.
Ms. Hochul also directed agencies to stop passing their Freedom of Information Act requests through the governor’s office, a Cuomo administration practice that often corrupts state records beyond the reach of the public. sometimes for many years.
And her administration has begun to move requested records more quickly, and has required state agencies to submit transparency-enhancing plans that have since been published on the internet.
Diane Kennedy, who campaigned for open government and press freedom as president of the New York News Publishers Association, which represents state newspapers (including The New York Times) , gave Hochul credit for ensuring public meetings remained accessible during the pandemic. She said it was nice to be treated with respect after years of being bullied by many Cuomo officials.
“This looks to me like a much brighter day,” Ms. Kennedy said, adding that “people are still traumatized by what they went through under Mr. Cuomo.
“They would be calling and yelling at people at all hours of the day and night for little things,” Ms. Kennedy said. “Hochul government is night and day.”
However, even as the tone in Albany has changed, the trading culture has not.
The most obvious example of Ms. Hochul’s inclination to covert business came in April, when the governor privately negotiated a deal to provide the Buffalo Bills with the most generous public funding payment ever for the Buffalo Bills. a professional football facility: a new $1.4 billion stadium. relies on $600 million from the state and another $250 million from Erie County. State records show that long-term maintenance costs will push taxpayers’ pledge north of $1 billion over the next 30 years.
Opinion poll most New Yorkers don’t like the stadium deal Ms. Hochul signed with the billionaire Pegula family and the NFL – and Ms. Hochul’s rivals on both sides have tease her for it, as well as government surveillance groups.
The fact that her husband’s current owner, Delaware North, has been selling expensive beer and hot dogs at the stadium’s franchise since 1992 only adds fuel on fire. (Ms. Hochul withdrew from transactions involving Delaware North, which was not a party to the stadium negotiations. And aides said the company prevented the governor’s husband, William. J. Hochul Jr., general counsel of Delaware North, from all New York-related business.)
“Given the statements Hochul made when she took over, about the profound changes in transparency and ethics in Albany,” said John Kaehny, chief executive officer of monitoring group Reinvent Albany. find her honest about any of those things,” said John Kaehny, chief executive officer of the Reinvent Albany monitoring group. “It’s a different kind of politics, but it still has the same outcome, which is that the governor is working for extremely powerful interest groups like the ones that prevailed under Cuomo.”
Ms. Hochul adopted a pro-business stance non-judgmentally from the start, saying she opposes the tax hike and wants New York, which experiences one of the the country’s population loss in 2021 – becoming the “most business- and worker-friendly” in the country. She often reverts to that posture when critics question the company’s subsidies.
The chip subsidy bill she pushed at the end of the session attracted far less attention than the stadium deal, despite having a 10x higher tax rate.
Ms Hochul has defended both deals, saying they will help fuel the rising economy – and, in the case of chip subsidies, will only cost taxpayers if chipmakers decided to build a base in New York and meet employment goals.
“Both of the projects you referenced are aimed at creating jobs,” Hochul said at a press conference in early June. “I will continue to focus in every way I can on lifting New Yorkers up, making sure everyone has jobs that pay them well. And that is the purpose of both of those initiatives.”
Hochul aides also said input from lawmakers strengthened the taxpayer protections in the bill.
Mr Skoufis was one of three Democrats who challenged their party’s governor and voted against the deal.
“Look, we all want to create jobs. Senator said. “But it’s also to protect taxpayers.”
The bill’s author, State Senator Jeremy Cooney, a Democrat from Rochester, said he also favors a more open and deliberate process. But with the loss of population in upstate New York and the recent loss of semiconductor contracts has resulted Texas and Ohiohe said legislators have to do something big because “we’re not competitive as a state right now.”
But State Senator Liz Krueger, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and another Democrat who voted “no” on the chip subsidy bill, said matching subsidies from counties could eventually increase. double the advertised price for taxpayers. She called it “the biggest economic development tax giveaway the state has ever seen – probably any state has ever seen.”
“We tried to negotiate some structure and transparency in the language and some limitations,” Ms. Krueger said. “I lost on that.”
Hochul will soon have another chance to make good on her pledge to usher in a new era of transparency. A bill that would return the inspectors’ statutory right to oversee certain contracts awarded through SUNY, CUNY and the Office of General Service has passed the Legislature with overwhelming support in The final hours of the session ended in early June.
Mrs. Hochul did not commit to signing it.
State Senator Elijah Reichlin-Melnick, the bill’s author, applauded the governor’s pledge to create a more open government and said that “there is clearly a better commitment to include lawmakers legislation and public input compared to the previous administration.” Then again, he can change his assessment of Miss Hochul if she doesn’t sign his bill.
“Then I would probably feel differently about her position on transparency,” he said.
