By Kit Moore
State legislators and newly elected county officials are demanding the Orange County Industrial Development Agency claw back tax breaks from companies that failed to meet job creation commitments, intensifying a conflict that has prompted the IDA to authorize legal action against its state-appointed monitor.
Sen. James Skoufis, D-Cornwall, and Assemblyman Jonathan Jacobson, D-Newburgh, joined newly elected Orange County legislators last week to call for accountability after the IDA’s monitor identified 15 projects that fell short of employment goals — representing more than half of the agency’s active tax incentives.
The monitor’s November report revealed significant disparities between promised and actual job numbers. CRH Realty III, Crystal Run Healthcare’s real estate arm, fell 343 jobs short of its 452-job commitment in Monroe, according to the report.
“The OCIDA should be ashamed of itself for not caring one iota about the taxpayers they purport to serve,” Skoufis said. “Now, only thanks to the state monitor I enacted in 2023, we’ve found out the OCIDA isn’t bothering to pay attention to the central tenet of these tax breaks: the jobs promised to our community.”
IDA Disputes Findings
OCIDA CEO Bill Fioravanti disputed the legislators’ characterizations, saying the press conference occurred “without ever speaking to us, or the monitor I assume, about the details surrounding this issue.”
The agency provided updated data showing that over a 10-year period, all but five companies met their goals at some point, and only three failed to reach within 10% of targets. Updated reports show 11 projects behind on job creation and two behind on retention, with seven falling short by less than 10%.
Fioravanti said some discrepancies resulted from reporting errors. Millennium Pipeline reported zero jobs for several years because positions were not Orange County-based. An FBI-occupied Stewart Airport facility reported zeros because the building owner believed only direct employees should be counted.
Other companies met goals initially but later lost positions. Hudson Transit Lines consistently met targets until 2019, when the pandemic disrupted ridership, which has not fully recovered.
However, the IDA acknowledged concerns about CRH Realty’s two projects, which consistently missed goals by more than 100 jobs, and Glen Arden retirement facility in Goshen, which never met targets and is under consideration for benefit recapture due to unpaid PILOT payments.
“All of the projects in question were awarded incentives ten or more years ago by the prior administration,” Fioravanti said, adding that the agency has “revamped our tracking process, in working with the monitor.”
Legal Battle Escalates
The dispute extends beyond job numbers. At a Dec. 17 board meeting, the OCIDA authorized litigation to remove the independent monitor, who was appointed following 2021 corruption charges against three agency officials.
The monitor recently vetoed tax breaks for an Amazon project in Wawayanda. The IDA has allocated $100,000 for lobbying against the monitor’s position renewal.
“The Orange County IDA is a complete trainwreck of an agency,” Skoufis said in response to the legal threat. “They should be thanking the state monitor for bringing to light the job creation failures the IDA failed to track.”
Jacobson emphasized government accountability: “Businesses that receive tax breaks from the IDA, but don’t live up to their promises to create permanent jobs, don’t deserve the deal they’ve been given.”
State law permits but does not require IDAs to reclaim benefits when companies fail to meet job commitments. Skoufis has pending legislation that would mandate clawbacks in such situations.
The legislators were joined by County Legislators-elect Jonathon Redeker, Stephen Hunter and Matthew Fascaldi.