Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has proposed an approximately $92 billion state operating budget for 2014-15 that amounts to a 1.7 percent or $1.5 billion increase in state spending from the current fiscal year.
When federal funds and long-term capital spending are included, the executive budget totals $137.2 billion, an increase of $1.8 billion or 1.3 percent from the current budget that ends March 31.
Delivered in Albany Jan. 21, the governor”™s budget would use a $310 million surplus from the current fiscal year to keep spending under the 2 percent cap set by Cuomo three years ago. The surplus, part of an overall $2 billion budget surplus for the state since Cuomo took office in 2011, would fund a portion of a broad tax reform package that is expected to reduce taxes for residents and businesses by more than $2 billion by the 2016-17 fiscal year.
Heather C. Briccetti, president and CEO of The Business Council of New York State Inc., in a statement said the executive budget demonstrated Cuomo”™s “continued commitment to improve the state”™s business climate. ”¦There is much for business to be encouraged about with the emphasis on holding growth in overall state spending to under 2 percent while promoting private sector investment and job creation and increasing in-state personal income, through broad-based business tax relief.”
As previously reported in the Business Journal, Cuomo in his State of the State address this month outlined a tax relief proposal that would add up to several hundred million dollars in cumulative savings for the state”™s business sector. It includes a refundable credit for manufacturers statewide equal to 20 percent of their property taxes. Cuomo also wants to eliminate the net income tax rate on upstate manufacturers, which currently stands at 5.9 percent.
Citing a recent Public Policy Institute report, Briccetti ”“ who served on the governor”™s tax relief commission ”“ said specific business tax reductions in the package “will have significant multiplier effects throughout the state”™s economy.” Those lowered taxes will support more than 14,000 new jobs by 2019 and nearly 18,000 new jobs by 2024, according to the Public Policy Institute report.
The executive budget includes $150 million in capital funding to be awarded by Empire State Development to the state”™s 10 regional economic development councils for priority job-creating projects in their respective regions. The fourth annual funding round for the councils created by Cuomo also would have them competing for a total of $70 million in tax credits for businesses through the state”™s Excelsior Jobs program.
Economically distressed upstate New York continues to be the primary focus of Cuomo”™s economic development and business tax relief initiatives in the new executive budget.
The spending plan includes $680 million in capital appropriations for Cuomo”™s $1 billion program to revitalize Buffalo”™s regional economy. In the Mohawk Valley, Nano Utica, the state”™s second major hub of nanotechnology research and development centered at SUNY Institute of Technology, is slated to receive $180 million toward the purchase of new equipment for a project.
Westchester County”™s academic and biomedical community is bypassed by the governor”™s plan to spend $105 million to support a partnership between the New York Genome Center in Manhattan and the University at Buffalo”™s Center for Computational Research to increase the speed of genomic research and analysis critical to diagnosis of diseases.
To support a regional priority project in the Adirondacks and St. Lawrence Valley, the executive budget includes $10 million for a public-private partnership between the state, Clarkson University and the private Trudeau Institute at Saranac Lake. The partners aim to form what state budget officials called “a world-class biotech enterprise” and establish Northern New York as “a premier center of biotechnology research and development.” In this region, that goal is shared by the public-private partnership driving BioHud Valley NY, an effort to establish the lower Hudson Valley as one of the nation”™s major biotech industry hubs.
Cuomo”™s first marketing initiative when taking office that signaled a change in New York”™s business climate, New York Open for Business, would continue in 2014 with a $50 million appropriation through the New York Power Authority.
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