The recent alleged corruption uncovered at the Orange County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) shouldn’t come as surprise to our regional community nor our leaders in Orange County government. For decades there has been reasons for concern as to the level of autonomy and discretion exercised by the IDA. This agency is empowered to redirect property tax revenue away from local communities in lieu of incentivizing businesses to create jobs and does so with limited or no oversight, nor governmental checks and balances. The supposed payback for this tax money is to enable our local citizens to gain sustainable employment from the business which receive the tax relief. Whether this investment of the public’s money is effective remains a mystery.

What is known is, up until a couple years ago, there was no record nor system to track the number of jobs each incentivized company created, far less the level of income of those anticipated jobs. There is undeniably no evaluation process to determine the level of impact to the quality of life of Orange County towns and cities as a result of giving away this money. Literally millions of tax dollars which could have provided relief to community homeowners and schools were doled out with no accountability whatsoever. What is even more ludicrous is the property taxes of current homeowners and established local businesses continues rise to offset the monies not paid by these PILOTs. (Payment in Lieu of Taxes)

Furthermore, within the history of the Orange County IDA, finds that businesses which did not originally apply for tax relief were awarded major financial relief AFTER they received their building permits and began their construction projects. At this time, the Orange County Industrial Development Agency is again under investigation by the County District Attorney David Hoovler. Orange County government leaders have responded to these atrocities by removing IDA Board members. This is the second time within the last five years this responsive action was implemented. While this may appear to resolve the issue, this approach is undeniably superficial and ineffective. It is the core administrative and policy-driven structure which needs to change in order to ethically and fiscally benefit Orange County.

1) Any and all tax relief incentives by the IDA must be fully transparent to the public throughout the entire applications process.

2) The criteria for qualifying for incentivized tax relief must be pre-determined by policy with no allowances for personal nor political discretion.

3) IDA Board discretion should be limited to deciding whether each applicant meets the criteria with final decisions made by the County Legislature.

4) Applicants for tax relief must present their tax filings from the previous years including and especially profit margins.

5) Companies exceeding a designated profit threshold by percentage should not qualify for tax relief incentives.

6) No tax relief should be considered for companies in which the location is in an Orange County community in which the Town, City and/or School Districts need to exceed the tax cap in order to balance their annual budgets.

7) Tax relief awarded to companies will be rescinded during those years in which Towns, Cities and School districts need to exceed the tax cap in order to balance their annual budgets.

8) The level of wages and benefits of permanent and construction employees must be considered when awarding tax relief,

Regional property owners and businesses are burdened with high tax levies and user fees, while communities and their school districts are under enormous fiscal stress with tax cap restrictions. Yet millions of regional tax dollars are being re-directed without any accountability whatsoever. The current approach to awarding property tax relief needs to change.