State Senator James Skoufis [D-Cornwall] as chair of the Senate’s Investigations & Government Operations Committee, announced Wednesday that he has launched a new Senate probe into recently approved property tax breaks by the Orange County IDA. The 15-year corporate subsidy for a forthcoming expansion of Mack Bros/Milmar Foods in Goshen will cost the local community more than $2.25 million over the life of the giveaway, according to Skoufis.

The expansion of this new endeavor would cost about $18.5 million to build and according to Skoufis, $7 million in federal grants had already been awarded to the applicant. Over the first three years, the company is projected to make $165 million. Fifty new jobs would be created with 44 at entry level at $35,000 a year which, Skoufis was very critical of due to costs of living.

“The awareness level has raised over the years with the general public here in Orange County. Certainly I and many others including the folks behind me have begun to better and more closely scrutinize the quote unquote deals, often times the bad deals that come out of this building,” Skoufis said.

Skoufis further continued that within the application process, Milmar Foods was asked if the project did not receive any assistance from the IDA, would they move forward? Milmar had indicated that if the project did not receive the necessary financial incentives, the project would still be able to move forward. In addition, the company foresaw that not as many jobs would have been created and the project would take longer to complete. The question was part of a public application document available on the Orange County IDA website for public viewing.

As the chair of the Senate’s Investigations & Government Operations Committee, Skoufis said that the committee will conduct investigations into other IDAs across the state to learn if projects were also approved in the same fashion. Ron Deutsch, Director of New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness, Michael Kink, Executive Director of the Strong Economy For All Coalition and Elizabeth Marcello, Senior Research Analyst, Reinvent Albany also joined the senator for his announcement.

Bill Fioravanti, Chief Executive Officer of the Orange County IDA, said Milmar was awarded $487,500 in sales tax exemptions in which Orange County would receive 3.75% or $18,281. Orange County would retain 73.6% of all sales taxes collected and the remaining, uncollected sales tax in the amount of $4,807 would be shared by cities and towns within Orange County. No community benefits were included in the proposed expansion according to Fioravanti.

“I think we all know the senator, he abhors tax incentives, period. In this case, he is singling out Milmar Foods,” said Fioravanti. “I’d like to be clear, there’s no need for any sort of formal investigation into the IDA, certainly not about a project like this. We’re a completely transparent agency, everything we do is totally transparent and public. We don’t shy away from an investigation. We think, obviously, the connotation is very negative so we don’t appreciate it.”