N.Y. Public Authorities Law § 8: Local authorities searchable subsidy and economic development benefits database

§ 8. Local authorities searchable subsidy and economic development

benefits database. 1. For the purposes of this section, the following

terms shall have the following meanings:

(a) "Economic development benefits" shall mean:

(i) funds made available by a local development corporation for

economic development, or job creation purposes including, but not

limited to, grants, loans, and bonds; and

(ii) bonds and tax exemptions which are applied for and preapproved or

certified by or on behalf of an industrial development agency for

economic development.

(b) "Qualified participant" shall mean a project operator pursuant to

section eight hundred seventy-four of the general municipal law with a

project pursuant to section eight hundred fifty-four of the general

municipal law.

(c) "Full-time equivalent" shall mean a unit of measure, which is

equal to one filled, full-time, annual-salaried position in a manner

consistent with federal calculations.

(d) "The office" shall mean the authorities budget office.

(e) "The database" or "the searchable database" shall mean the

database created pursuant to subdivision two of this section.

(f) "The project" shall mean specific work, action, endeavor, contract

or agreement for which any economic benefit as defined in paragraph (a)

of this subdivision, is made available or awarded by a local development

corporation or industrial development agency to a person, business,

limited liability corporation or any other entity.

2. Notwithstanding any laws to the contrary, the office shall create a

searchable database, displaying data regarding economic development

benefits that a qualified participant has been awarded. Such searchable

database shall include the following data, features and functionality to

the extent practicable:

(a) the ability to search the database by each of the reported

information fields;

(b) the ability to be searchable, downloadable, and posted on a

publicly accessible website as well as referenced on the office's

website, with a direct link to the database;

(c) the ability to digitally select defined individual fields

corresponding to any of the reported information from qualified

participants to create unique database views;

(d) the ability to download the database in its entirety, or in part,

in a common machine readable format;

(e) a definition or description of terms for fields in the database;

(f) a summary of each separate economic development benefit defined in

paragraph (a) of subdivision one of this section awarded to qualified

participants;

(g) a user-friendly guide to outline the features and functionality of

the database;

(h) a dedicated email account for the public to direct questions

related to the database, and the office mailing address, office

telephone number, and name of the chief officer;

(i) the following data on local development corporations shall be

included:

(i) relating to grants, the source of funds for the grant, the name

and address of the entity that received the grant, the date and amount

awarded, how the grant funds will be used, whether the grant proceeds

were expected to result in new jobs being created, and if so, how many

jobs were planned to be created and how many jobs have been created to

date;

(ii) relating to loans, the source of funds for the loan, the name and

address of the entity that received the loan, the date and amount

awarded, the loan interest rate, the length of the loan in years, the

amount repaid to date, how the loan funds will be used, and whether the

loan was provided to the recipient for the purpose of creating jobs, and

if so, how many jobs were planned to be created and how many jobs have

been created to date; and

(iii) relating to bonds, the name and address of the recipient of the

bond proceeds, the amount and date of the bond issuance, the bond

interest rate, the year the bonds are expected to be fully retired, the

amount of bond principal retired during the reporting period, how the

bond proceeds are used, whether the bond proceeds were provided to the

recipient to create jobs, and if so, how many jobs were planned to be

created and how many jobs have been created to date; and

(j) the following data on industrial development agency projects shall

be included:

(i) project name, project type, project location, and the project's

complete address, including the postal code in a separate and searchable

field;

(ii) whether the project is part of another phase or multi phase, the

category of the project purpose, the total project amount, the benefited

project amount, if the project type was a bond, the bond amount, if the

project type was a lease, the lease amount, whether the qualified

recipient is a not-for-profit, the date the project was approved,

whether the industrial development agency took title to a property, and

if so, the date that title was taken, and the year financial assistance

is planned to end;

(iii) the qualified participant's name and the qualified participant's

complete address, including the postal code in a separate and searchable

field;

(iv) the amount of project tax exemptions granted, including for state

sales tax, local sales tax, county real property tax, local property

tax, school property tax, mortgage recording tax, the total exemptions,

and the total exemptions net of real property tax law section four

hundred eighty-five-b;

(v) the amount of payments in lieu of taxes agreed upon and actually

made to the county, local municipality, or school district, the total

amount of payments in lieu of taxes agreed upon and actually made, and

the net exemptions once the payments in lieu of taxes are subtracted

from the total project tax exemptions; and

(vi) the total number of employees for the project prior to industrial

development agency status, estimate of jobs to be created, average

estimated annual salary of jobs to be created, annualized salary range

of jobs to be created, original estimate of jobs to be retained,

estimated average annual salary of jobs to be retained, current number

of full-time equivalents, number of full-time equivalent construction

jobs during the reporting fiscal year, and the net employment change.

3. The office shall submit a quarterly report to the governor,

temporary president of the senate, and speaker of the assembly outlining

key usage statistics of the database created pursuant to subdivision two

of this section including, but not limited to, the total number of

unique users that quarter.