The spreading potted plants claiming floor and window space in her ninth-floor office in the Michaelian Office Building in White Plains are not all that Eileen Mildenberger took over from her predecessor. As executive director of the Westchester County Industrial Development Agency, the 43-year-old attorney and former state official has an institutional reputation to tend as well.
“This IDA has a very professional and transparent history and I look forward to continuing to implement that,” Mildenberger said on her first official day in the office to which she was appointed in March by the county IDA board of directors. She succeeds Theresa G. Waivada, who continued to serve the agency as a consultant after retiring from the executive director”™s position in 2010.
Though new to White Plains ”“ the Long Islander recently moved here ”“ Mildenberger brings more than a decade of experience in state economic development circles to the county job. Like the IDA”™s board chairman, Stephen J. Hunt, she did public service under three-term Gov. George E. Pataki.
Mildenberger spent 12 years at the Empire State Development Corp., the state”™s chief development arm. In her last three years there, she was chief operating officer of the 500-person agency with a $30-million annual budget. Westchester County officials said the COO also created guidelines and procedures for business assistance programs statewide that resulted in more than $100 billion in economic benefits.
After 9/11, Mildenberger worked with lower Manhattan businesses as head of ESDC”™s business recovery division. “That was very, very rewarding both personally and professionally, listening to what businesses needed and then helping them fulfill their needs,” she said.
Mildenberger is no stranger to the role of the state”™s industrial development agencies in helping companies expand and relocate with tax-exempt bonds and exemptions from sales and mortgage recording taxes for projects that create or retain jobs. At ESDC, she oversaw 10 regional offices, “so many of the projects that we did had an IDA component with IDAs around the state,” she said.
The role those IDAs will have in Gov. Andrew Cuomo”™s regionally oriented redesign of economic development initiatives in the state is still unclear. The recently adopted state budget includes $130 million in funding for 10 new Regional Economic Development Councils that Cuomo has tapped Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy to head.
Cuomo has said council members will be drawn from the private sector, local governments, state agencies and academic institutions. Competing for performance-based economic development grants, the councils are envisioned as one-stop shops for all state-supported programs of economic development and business assistance.
Mildenberger and other economic officials await an executive order from the governor that will launch the regional plan. She said the county IDA can be an effective and powerful tool in that regional development approach. “I”™m not sure how it”™s going to be designed but I look forward to being hopefully instrumental to it success,” she said.
The county IDA has seen its annual revenue and financing role for projects decline since state legislators in 2008 allowed IDAs”™ bonding authority for civic facilities projects by nonprofit groups to expire. The loss of fees from those projects was coupled with the recession and a freeze on construction financing from private lenders that have slowed business investments in the county.
The county IDA reported an operating loss of approximately $322,000 in 2010 and a $296,000 decline in net assets as of Dec. 31 from the start of the year to $5.76 million.
The agency”™s unrestricted fund balance at the close of 2010 was about $4.7 million, which the board”™s chairman, Hunt, called “very generous and adequate.” According to board meeting minutes, Hunt and Waivada in December indicated the agency still was financially sound for seven to nine years.
That fund balance, though, has gone down with the loss of fees collected from the IDA”™s civic facilities bonding projects, Hunt said. The New York State Economic Development Council, an advocacy and education group for the state”™s economic development professionals, continues to lobby in Albany for new authorizing legislation, which some lobbying interests and lawmakers want tied to a prevailing-wage pay requirement for bonded projects.
“The fact that we have an on-time state budget is maybe a hopeful sign that they will get to that” issue in this legislative session, said Hunt. “Hopefully now they can focus on the important issues.”
Westchester County Executive Robert P. Astorino in a written statement said Mildenberger fills “a key position when it comes to the county”™s efforts to retain and attract business. Eileen has a track record of experience that Westchester can now draw on to spur economic growth.”
“I”™m extremely excited to be part of the county executive”™s fresh approach to be more effective and efficient and business-friendly,” Mildenberger said. “One of my goals is to be responsive to all of Westchester businesses”™ needs.”
