When Kevin Doyle, Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer's IDA representative, pressed Perry on whether labor disputes weren't relevant to subsidy decisions, whether labor disputes should be considered, he replied: "This is about our commitment to the city. We're trying to work with the city at a very difficult economic time." Failing to approve the subsidy, Perry said, "will cause us to re-look at our real estate strategy."
Subtract the labor dispute, then, and the Thomson Reuters deal is just another skirmish in what Minneapolis Federal Reserve vice-president Arthur Rolnick dubbed "the economic war among the states," the decades-long battle in which local governments try to outbid each other in luring companies to relocate or remain on their side of the state line. That only came up, though, aside from a brief mention in the testimony of Bettina Damiani of the subsidy-watch group Good Jobs New York, who said that in interstate relocation fights, "the only groups that win are the site consultants and the companies."
At today's hearing, the IDA also considered tax breaks of $1.6 million to a Long Island City furniture manufacturer to expand its space, $429,000 in aid for building an Associated supermarket in an underserved portion of Morrisania - and a sales-tax exemption for the accounting giant Deloitte LLP that could be worth anywhere from $10.6 million to $21 million.
The Deloitte subsidy is just as worthy of major scrutiny as the Thomson Reuters one, says Damiani. "This is exactly what Bloomberg said he wouldn't be doing," she said after the meeting. "You're going to tell me a multi-billion-dollar firm is going to grow because you gave them $21 million over 20 years?"
The IDA is scheduled to vote on the Thomson Reuters deal, and the other proposals presented today, on Tuesday.
