Chamber Today
Delaware County Chamber of Commerce
Over 40 years of service to the area's business community
A GLANCE BACK and MOVING FORWARD
Once again we have gone through another year and are beginning to prepare for the new one, and it is time to write about the Governmental Affairs Committee of the Chamber. As I look back at what I wrote one year ago, I was startled at how similar this years report could be but at the same time, it could be quite different. I started last
years report by talking about the State of NY and how difficult the financial picture of the state is. Nothing new there, except the financial picture is now quite a bit worse than last year. There is so much partisan bickering that absolutely nothing gets done. Is there any group of elected officials in the Senate or Assembly who will forget party politics and work for the people of NY and not for their party? I will let you answer that.
On the local level, Delaware County adopted a budget that increased taxes only 1.49%. I personally feel the Board of Supervisors did a great job in controlling costs going into 2010. All you have to do is to look at our neighboring counties and the financial problems they have to realize the strength of our position and the difficulty of budgeting for 2010. This is a direct result of the turmoil in our State Legislature! We even had a Town in our county – Delhi – that had absolutely no tax increase this year. Thanks go to all the officials for their hard work. Delaware County and the Town of Walton suffered a great loss this year. John Meredith lost his battle with cancer at an extremely young age. John was certainly a rising star and a huge asset to the people of Delaware County. John was a fellow member of the IDA Board as well as County Budget Director. I can tell you that John was a total advocate for any business expansion, but especially anything in the Town of Walton. He truly cared about his hometown. Thank you John, we will miss you!
During 2009, the Chamber along with Watershed Affairs and Delaware County Economic Development completed the Economic Impact Study of the NY City Land Acquisition Program. This was a major study that in many cases confirmed the worst fears that a lot of us have had. Land acquisition by the City, Watershed Ag, or any other group is very threatening to those of us who live here and most certainly will impact our cost of living. I would suggest that you visit the website www.delcowatershed.com to download or read the report. This is very important to the future of our area!
The results are in from our annual membership survey. This survey is done near the end each year and helps us to get a feel as to how the business community is doing in the County and gives us some guidance as to membership attitudes toward many important issues. Delaware County actually appears fairly stable. In fact 72% said their business sales would remain the same as before or expand in 2010. At the same time, 79% said they would remain the same or increase the number of employees in 2010 with the clear majority holding steady. Not bad, when you listen to national statistics. One issue that bothers me somewhat is that we still have 42% that do not have a web site. This seems somewhat high and I would encourage anyone to inquire at the Chamber Office about future classes that might assist you with web site design. Those who responded to the survey were not kind to NY State Government. Many comments were made about recent events in Albany. Property taxes/cost of government lead your concerns, with regulatory burden from NY City a close second place. Many people are commenting about the situation with NY City and are feeling the weight of both the regulations and land acquisitions. On the national scene, healthcare dominated the comments. A full 60% indicated that they did not want a federally operated program. At the same time, people felt that the cost was out of line and something needs to be done. There were many suggestions ranging from tax breaks on premiums to tort reform for medical malpractice claims, and Medicaid/Medicare fraud control as favored ways to control costs in the future. In short, Delaware County pretty much mirrors the national debate on health care. We need to address the cost and size of local governments which will in turn help with the tax burden. I can assure you that the Chamber will be watching very closely as the NY State Legislature starts up in January 2010. This is where the real peril lies as to our costs. Stay tuned for future e mail blasts and newsletters.
I do thank those of you that responded for your time. We need this kind of feedback from the members in order to be effective for you. I understand that it will be a year before our next survey, but I hope that even more of you will help us in 2010. The Chamber would like to thank you for your participation and continued membership.
Wishing all of you a healthy, safe and prosperous 2010!
Tourism Update
Call for Photos and Events
Our second homeowner postcards have generated lots of email sign ups. One of the problems we ran into is the lack of high resolution photographs we could use for a printed piece. If you have digital photos that are generally over 1MB or at least 800 pixels by 640 pixels, please email them to me. If you have a great photo not digital please mail to me with a SAS return envelope and we’ll scan it. We hope this weekender effort will generate lots more looks at our event calendar website, so make sure we know if your event. If you have any questions or want to advertise in our e-blasts or on our event website www.delawarecountytoday.com, please email
tourism@delawarecounty.org.
IDA REFORM - HOT TOPIC FOR 2010
New York’s 116 Industrial Development Agencies (IDA’s) provide significant support for economic development projects throughout New York State. IDA’s provide reduced cost financing and property and sales tax relief to significant investment projects and have been fairly cost effective with an average tax benefit per job created of less than $4200.
In recent years, a number of IDA “reform” bills have been introduced. Labor unions have pushed to treat IDA funded projects like government construction projects. Here are a few bullets of a recently drafted IDA reform legislation:
Apply construction prevailing wage mandates to most private sector & non-profit projects financed through IDA’s (a project labor agreement mandating union only labor can be a substitute for the construction prevailing wage mandate);
Require payment of prevailing wage to building maintenance and service workers at IDA financed projects that employ 100 or more; and
Impose regional “living wage” mandates on all employees at IDA financed projects in the wholesale, retail, warehousing, hotel, food service, laundry/dry cleaning and civic facility sectors, where such projects employ 100 or more.
For “Civic facilities” (defined as including two and four year colleges, hospitals, and large cultural facilities with at least 500 employees these wage mandates apply to projects for which the amount of IDA bond financing exceeds $10 million.
For other categories of projects, these wage mandates apply if the project exceeds either a regional bond threshold, or a regional “net tax exemption” threshold defined as the total of tax exemptions provided by the IDA, less any payment in lieu of real property taxes.
The Delaware County Chamber of Commerce has opposed IDA reform legislation that requires prevailing wage mandates. Since 2000, the Delaware County IDA has funded projects to the tune of approximately $13 million in Delaware County. This includes IDA loans, bonds, $400,000 in small business grants and $3 million in infrastructure related projects. There has been no large projects funded since IDA reform discussions began two years ago.
IDA reform will undoubtedly be an active issue in the 2010 State Legislative session. Wage mandates, “transparency” and categories of eligible projects will be among the issues debated. The County Chamber will be active in trying to assure that New York retains IDA’s as a valuable economic development tool.
Health Insurance Update
Once again, for the 9th consecutive year, the New York State Health Insurance Department has approved double-digit increases to our health insurance premiums. Due to the increasing health rates, we have several options available.
The hottest products on the market are Health Savings Accounts which is coupled with a high-deductible health plan. These plans provide excellent coverage while keeping the premiums low. We strongly urge you to take a look at these plans and consider what they and do for your business. These plans are available through Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, CDPHP, MVP and SSA (Support Service Alliance). There are also numerous other plans offered through the Chamber and there is No Administration Fee! There are also several higher deductible plans offered to keep the premium at a lower rate.
We offer a monthly pay option available through our electronic funds transfer (EFT) program. Monthly premiums can automatically be deducted from your checking account the first day of the month of coverage. You will still receive a monthly statement that you can keep for your records.
We want you to know, the Delaware County Chamber of Commerce is continually seeking out better solutions for the Delaware County Business owner and we will continue to fight for lower costing health insurance. We have researched many insurance options and you can be assured that you are getting the best possible combination of coverage at a reasonable cost. For further information on your plan changes or questions you may have, please feel free to call Amy Akers, Chamber health insurance representative, located in the Chamber office at
607-746-2281.
