The town’s Industrial Development Agency (IDA) is making necessary revisions on state financial reports after the agency recently came under fire for not reporting key financial information.
After a meeting with the state Authority Budget Office (ABO) on Friday, Jan. 9, the Colonie IDA has planned to correct some discrepancies in the financial reports it submitted to the ABO. That office has reopened two of its previous annual reports giving financial information for statewide public authorities, such as town IDAs.
Reports indicated that the Colonie IDA has been failing to report the correct amount of money going in and out of the agency, such as what new projects have been approved to receive sales and mortgage tax breaks, and projected job creation numbers from new businesses. This means millions of dollars went unreported to the state. The agency is now looking to remedy the issue.
IDA Chairman David DeLuca, who is also head of the agency’s audit and finance committees, said that committee heads met with three members of the ABO, including director David Kidera, on Jan. 9. The meeting was held to develop a plan to fix the discrepancies.
“We called them to come to the meeting to discuss reports. What was in there, what was missing, how they could help us in terms of preparing information. What we need to do to prepare some of the stuff that was missing,” said DeLuca at the Monday, Jan. 12, audit committee meeting.
DeLuca said that the IDA has been contacting officials from projects the agency approved in the last three to five years to compile the information for the ABO financial reports from 2013 and 2014. The two reports cover projects from the 2012 and 2013 fiscal years.
“It was clear certain information under jobs and measurement performances had not been completed, nor has it been completed since the new reporting requirements came out in 2009, so it wasn’t something we missed one year. We’ve been inconsistent in not reporting it,” DeLuca further said.
One such project was Shaker Pointe at Carondelet, a residential development for seniors 55 and over. The project began in 2011, first reported to be seeking tax exemption at the IDA meeting on Aug. 29 of that year, according to previous IDA minutes.
The IDA approved mortgage tax exemption of about $358,750 for Shaker Pointe at the Nov. 12 meeting in 2012. In neither ABO reports covering the 2011 and 2012 fiscal years, was the Colonie IDA listed as approving any new projects.
Other projects during the years that went unreported were the Shelter Cove housing development off of New Loudon Road and Jetro Restaurant Depot on Railroad Avenue.
As well, the recently built ShopRite at 1769 Central Ave. requested a sales and mortgage tax exemption of $989,000 and $210,000 respectively in 2012. The IDA was also given a job creation estimate of 300 to 400 jobs for ShopeRite. Both the project and its job estimates were not listed in ABO reports.
IDA projects are supposed to be submitted to the Public Authorities Reporting System through the ABO. For Colonie, this task falls on IDA Executive Director Joe LaCivita. However, new projects went unreported since 2010.
“Some of their problems were misunderstandings of the statute and not necessarily being as well versed as we would like in terms of what should be reported,” said Kidera, of the ABO. He said that reports should have included, among a projected number of jobs created by each new project, any relevant financial information surrounding new projects. This does not only include tax exemptions, but also investments from the IDA.
The ABO offered a similar criticism of the Colonie IDA in the 2008 financial report after the finding “certain reporting requirements” were unmet. The report stated that, while IDA board members had active involvement with financial assistance applications, involvement was lacking with “the operational and fiscal oversight of the agency.”
Records management and retention was also lacking, and certain policies and guidelines had not been established, the report stated. The report then said IDA members agreed with the findings and would work toward better complying with ABO requirements.
The IDA has already made an attempt to become more transparent. At the Jan. 12 IDA meeting, LaCivita said that the Planning and Economic Development Department added 64,039 square feet of new projects in 2014. A number of the projects were subdivisions and retail offices, warehouses and manufacturing services.
Going into 2015, the IDA has four new projects to look at, all of them national retailers not yet in the Capital District, according to LaCivita.
“One, actually, is a potential for regional draw, which could potentially be a some 150-mile draw,” said LaCivita. “So we’re working quite diligently to try to ensure that we work with the applicant and the landowner to land all those projects in 2015.”
He also said that in 2014, the applications the IDA had to date estimated about 470 new jobs to be created, but that number was exceeded by 66 more jobs than expected.
However, Kidera expects the ABO to work further with the IDA to resolve the financial reporting issues and ensure the reports do not lapse in the future.
“They were very receptive to our ideas,” Kidera said. “We made ourselves available to them, and they indicated they would take us up on that offer. I expect that we will be providing more assistance.”
