Governor Cuomo says New York’s policy of combining tax cuts with incentives to hire locally is a working formula for economic development, but now it needs to be brought down to the community level and kept going.
The governor spoke at the opening of the Finger Lakes Sustainable Development Conference in Rochester today. Cuomo says programs like “Start Up NY” have brought the statewide unemployment rate down to 4.6 percent. He says the job of the Finger Lakes and other regional development conferences is to get that approach down to the community to reverse decline and break the cycle of poverty.
Cuomo says the time needs to be now, because regional economic development grants aren’t designed to be around forever. He called them “lighter fluid on the grill” but said it will be up to the individual communities to make it sustainable.
Lt. Governor Kathy Hochul says Wednesday’s conference was all about the nuts and bolts of how to do it. The group spent the day discussing specific projects to be funded with the state’s “Finger Lakes Forward” grant of $500 million over the next five years.