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Opinion

Big Upsides to Downstate Gaming: Union Jobs and Transit Revenue


new york casino

(photo: Governor's Office)


New York has a proud history of thinking big and building bold. As New York searches for routes to generate new revenue to fund critical priorities, and drive job growth through significant private investment projects, we have an unparalleled opportunity right in front of us.

Albany leaders should lift the moratorium on the expansion of casino development downstate and begin an open competition for the remaining three gaming licenses as approved by New York voters in 2013. No other opportunity is currently on the horizon to provide the infusion of jobs or revenue New York would experience with a robust, competitive, and transparent process to expand gaming downstate.

Surrounding states have taken advantage of New York’s moratorium on downstate gaming by moving quickly to expand gaming and produce new jobs and revenue for themselves.

Boston is putting the finishing touches on a $2 billion resort and gaming complex, with 4,000 permanent jobs and 5,700 construction jobs – good union jobs. Pennsylvania has seen $400 million in new revenue over the past year after enacting a broad gaming expansion. New Jersey is seeing $20 million a month in new revenue from sports betting alone, and Connecticut is considering gaming expansion in Bridgeport and on the New York border. And, ironically, New Yorkers who have limited gaming opportunities in their own state are often the ones funding tax revenues and job growth in neighboring states.

With due respect for our neighbors from Boston to Bridgeport, New York, with 60 million tourists a year to the City, is the single most attractive new market for gaming in the United States. Let’s show we can do it big and do it right: instead of a private company pitting cities against each other in a bidding war, let’s have private casino companies compete with each other for the right to valuable resort gaming franchises in New York.

A New York gaming development license is an extraordinarily valuable asset if structured correctly with a competitive process for three licenses that:

-Establishes a minimum license fee of $500 million per license -- totaling $1.5 billion in upfront revenue;

-Sets a minimum private investment of $2 billion per license -- bringing in $6 billion in private investment;

-Requires union labor on construction jobs and the right for unions to organize permanent operations jobs; and

-Dedicates new revenue to improve public transit service, fund public education, and other New York priorities.

If done right, releasing the remaining three licenses in a competitive bid process will generate tens of thousands of good union jobs and billions in revenue for the City and the State without any federal, state or local subsidies. And it would provide local and accessible economic opportunities for communities that are too often shut out.

The estimated $1.5 billion in up-front license fees from casinos could be dedicated immediately to fund public education or to help close the revenue gap needed for the MTA. If the State moves quickly, this revenue could be available in the next fiscal year. Additional, ongoing revenue from gaming and real estate taxes could be dedicated to fund crucial programmatic priorities – without any subsidies, and no additional taxes or fees on New Yorkers.

A significant private investment requirement of $2 billion for each gaming resort development (on top of license fees) would create a projected 16,800 permanent career union jobs, and an additional 15,000 union construction jobs. These are good jobs, benefiting a diverse union workforce with quality benefits including healthcare, training, and secure career opportunities.

Think about it: $6 billion in private development to fund critical needs. Built and operated by local union labor. No subsidies. Keeping New York dollars in New York. If you created the wishlist for future development in New York, you couldn’t do better. New York has the winning hand when it comes to making the most of the gaming licenses already approved by New York voters: Let’s play it.

***
Gary LaBarbera is President of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York. John Samuelson is International President of the Transport Workers Union (TWU).

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New York Construction Workers Remain at Risk Without Legislative Action


gov cuomo first phase rev

(photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


With this year’s legislative session in full-swing in Albany, special interest groups have resumed their attacks on laws designed to keep workers safe on construction sites. Construction and insurance trade groups, seeking to shed accountability and pad their pockets, have argued that labor protections like the Scaffold Safety Law are somehow undermining worker safety. However, a recent data analysis by the New York Committee for Occupational Safety & Health (NYCOSH) confirms that stronger safety requirements in New York City are helping to reduce on-the-job fatalities while worker deaths continue to rise in other, less-regulated parts of the state.

In 2017, the most recent data year available, the construction fatality rate across New York State was 52% higher than in New York City, according to our analysis of federal and city data. This significant difference in fatalities is not an outlier, but rather the continuation of an ongoing trend. Over the past five years, New York State’s construction workers have experienced a 39% increase in fatal injury rates compared to a 23% decrease in New York City. The stark gap in safety outcomes can be explained by the city’s more pronounced enforcement of safety regulations, which has helped to deter contractors from cutting corners and putting workers’ lives at risk.

Underfunding has constrained the federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration’s ability to conduct worksite inspections and enforce penalties for safety violations. In response, New York City officials have allocated more funding to the city’s Department of Buildings, boosting the agency’s budget from $107 million in 2015 to $183 million in 2019 and increasing its personnel from 1,156 employees in 2015 to 1,880 this year. Armed with larger staff and additional resources, the agency has expanded its ability to identify construction safety hazards and hold negligent contractors accountable.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has stepped up as well, prosecuting severe offenders through the Construction Fraud Task Force. By prosecuting bad actors for wage theft and dangerous labor violations, the DA’s office indicated that contractors are not above the law, especially when they are putting lives at risk. Beyond a more proactive approach to enforcement, the city has also encouraged employers to prioritize proper safety education by mandating that workers complete specific training and certification requirements.

At the state level, officials must uphold existing safety provisions and enact additional protections in order to reduce fatalities outside of New York City.

It’s imperative that lawmakers preserve the Scaffold Safety Law, which allows construction workers to hold negligent contractors responsible when serious injuries or fatalities do occur. The law simply calls for contractors to ensure that workers have access to proper safety equipment. If a failure to provide safety equipment leads to injury, workers are able to then hold the contractor responsible for the lost wages and medical bills that result. The Scaffold Safety Law is a crucial mechanism that deters contractors from cutting corners on safety equipment and promotes accountability.

In addition to maintaining the Scaffold Safety Law, policymakers should create a statewide vehicle to enforce labor protections and overcome the limitations of federal regulators. To that same end, the state Department of Labor should implement a registry of workplace fatalities to foster public transparency, as well as implement Carlos’ Law to increase the maximum fines that can be levied against negligent contractors.

The state would be wise to borrow a few lessons from New York City, by expanding the number of prosecutions for cases of severe employer misconduct and requiring construction workers to undergo training and certification.

The latest data offers a glaring reminder that construction remains a dangerous profession, particularly in the absence of meaningful regulations. At the same time, the decrease of fatality rates even when coupled with an ongoing construction boom in New York City indicates that stronger safety protections can save lives without stunting the industry’s growth.

For those who are committed to protecting the lives of New York’s working families, there is a clear path forward to improving construction safety centered on increasing worksite inspections, enforcing stronger penalties, and expanding workers’ access to safety equipment and resources.

***
Charlene Obernauer is the Executive Director of the New York Committee for Occupational Safety & Health.

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Ending The School Aid Charade


gov cuomo edu

(photo: governor's office)


It is budget season in New York State and the annual game of determining the amount of state aid each of the 674 school districts will receive is in full swing. Every district and its legislators will fervently argue that more school aid is needed, that its schools are underfunded, and that its students will suffer serious harm if more money isn’t devoted to them as soon as possible. But in fact, the vast majority of New York’s schools are generously funded, while our results in terms of achievement are only mediocre. Instead of targeting additional aid to the few truly needy districts, all are given more.

As is the case in most states, New York public schools are primarily a local responsibility. Each school district runs its own schools, has its own contract with the teachers union, and relies on local property taxes to fund a large part of its costs. State school aid is meant to supplement the local tax contribution so that children in ‘low wealth’ districts are not denied the ‘sound basic education’ guaranteed by the State Constitution.

Each year a chorus of school advocates including the teachers union, school administrators, and state legislators argue for more state school aid. Whatever increase the Governor proposes is inevitably denounced as too little. The higher amount recommended by the State Education Department (SED) (controlled not by the Governor but by the Legislature via the State Board of Regents) is also decried as too low. Inevitably, some compromise amount is set in the state budget that is always a significant increase over the prior year.

The total amount of legislatively-approved school aid statewide rose 32% percent over the ten years between 2006 and 2017 and totaled more than $28 billion in fiscal year 2018, the largest expense in the state’s operating funds budget. Combined with local allocations, New York State school districts now spend a whopping $69 billion a year, an average of more than $25,000 per student, by far the highest amount in the country.

The game in its current form has been played since 2011, following the recession of 2008 when across-the-board school-aid cuts were imposed, when the Governor and the Legislature agreed to an annual ‘cap’ on the growth of school aid tied to growth in personal income and used a ‘foundation formula’ to determine the amount of aid each district would get, based on its number of poor students, English language learners, students with disabilities, regional cost differences, property values, and wealthy residents.

But the cap has never really been adhered to, and the results of the foundation formula are undermined through the addition of other kinds of aid (e.g. transportation, high tax aid) and foundation aid ‘hold harmless’ provisions ensuring that no district ever loses aid and indeed, that all get at least some increase each year no matter what they spend.

Why does this game go on? First, school aid is the primary vehicle for state legislators to ‘bring home the bacon’ and demonstrate effectiveness to their voters. The wealthiest school districts are in suburban areas where residents have shown the value they attach to top quality schools by paying very high property taxes. Even though these districts are already spending outsized amounts per pupil on their schools, they want more and their representatives need to get it for them. The Governor needs the support of these legislators for other parts of his agenda, so he is loath to disappoint them.

Second, public education advocates continue to make the argument that there are unmet school needs as revealed by the shortfall between aid amounts and what would have been provided under the foundation formula had it continued to be applied as approved in a lawsuit filed by a consortium known as the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE).

The lawsuit ended in a settlement in 2007, and, while clearly articulating the right of all children in New York to free quality education, did not legally require implementation of its calculations of optimum aid. The Governor has called the CFE aid formula a ‘ghost of the past’ but the state teachers union and an alliance of other advocacy groups continue to insist that there is a shortfall of at least $4 billion in state school aid.

It is true that some school districts are underfunded and should receive more state aid to make up for their high number of poor students and their low property tax wealth. But there are less than 35 districts in this category and their unmet needs total less than $200 million. This shortfall could easily be filled by re-allocating a small part of the money that is going to school districts that do not need it; they are already spending far more than enough.

The 62 wealthiest districts in New York are receiving almost $5,000 a year in state school aid and are spending an average of $30,500 per student per year. The 68 poorest districts are getting much more aid – an average of $15,700 per student – but because they don’t have sufficient local resources, they can spend only $22,000 per student per year. There is no educational reason to give the wealthier districts any aid, and certainly no more than they are getting.

Surely, everyone involved in setting school aid amounts knows this. But the CFE advocates don’t want to alienate a large of portion of their support from the wealthy districts by arguing only for targeted aid increases and the legislative representatives of the well-funded school districts are certainly not going to kill the golden goose. So we continue with a charade of hand-wringing about the need for more school funding state-wide.

This year Governor Cuomo has proposed almost $1 billion in additional aid, SED wants more than $2 billion more, and the CFE groups are still demanding $4 billion. The reality is there is no justification for more state school aid, it just needs to be re-allocated and targeted to the specific districts that are actually needy. But more school aid there surely will be. This is especially infuriating when the Governor is proposing to reduce spending on Medicaid to address an expected $2.3 billion revenue shortfall in the next fiscal year.

In his second State of the State address, in 2012, Governor Cuomo complained that all the adults in the public school system have lobbyists pressing for more spending and that he would now be the students’ lobbyist. But over time, he has made compromises with the political realities; while his school aid proposals are accompanied by rhetorical acknowledgement of the need for better targeting, the chorus of calls for everyone everywhere in the state to receive more school funding continues. It is well past time for this charade to end.

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Carol Kellermann was president of Citizens Budget Commission from 2008 through 2018.

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