Issue Position: Decimation of the Empire Zone Program

Issue Position

In the 2010-2011 State Budget, Senate Democrats supported replacing the $550 million Empire Zone Program, which has been an effective economic development tool especially for Upstate businesses, with a $50 million Excelsior program. Their actions effectively reduced the amount of property, sales and business tax relief that will be available to Upstate businesses by 90 percent.

The Empire Zone program offered relief to businesses large and small with an estimated 9,000 businesses statewide enjoying the benefits of the program.

The program provided approximately $100 million in tax reductions for businesses in New York City and over $400 million for the rest of the state.

The new Excelsior program only offers $50 million in total benefit per year, less than half the property tax relief, no sales tax relief and would only be given to businesses that create at least 10 new jobs. Less than 100 companies are estimated to enter the Excelsior program each year. The jobs creation target is industry specific with the minimum job requirement of 10 new jobs only authorized for agriculture and research based businesses. All other businesses are required to create between 25 and 150 new jobs to be eligible.

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