BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Buffalo Niagara Partnership offered mixed reviews on Friday regarding the state's pending budget deal. Their key complaint? The budget does not include measures that would lessen the burden of unemployment insurance debt for businesses.
"New York has billions of federal dollars it could use to help pay down its UI debt and prevent massive tax hikes on employers. Instead, state leaders continue to look the other way," said Buffalo Niagara Partnership President and CEO Dottie Gallagher.
The cost of unemployment insurance has been mounting as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic during which New York grew the amount it owes to the federal government to over $9 billion after borrowing money to pay out unemployment benefits.
Grant Loomis, VP for Governmental Affairs at the Buffalo-Niagara Partnership explained that the higher the state's unemployment debt balance the more New York's private sector will pay.
"We hope, absent the action they failed to take as part of this budget agreement that the state will do something," said Loomis.
He added, "without action, employers are going to face much higher UI premiums and that's going to directly hurt employers of all shapes and sizes many of which are struggling to get back on their feet."
On top of the debt issue, the partnership pooh-poohed a new $50,000 application fee for the Brownfield Cleanup Program.
The program is being extended for another 10 years, but Loomis said the worry is that this one-time, non-refundable charge could stifle projects that have been a key part of Buffalo's renewal i.e. Bethlehem Steel and the former Milliard Fillmore Gate Circle project.
There was previously no application fee when requesting to clean up potentially contaminated sites. Developers will be able to apply for a financial hardship exemption through the Department of Environment Conservation, but the guidelines for that process have yet to be written.