Reports to You

Assemblyman

Robin SchimmingerSpring 2018

By the time you receive this report, another budget year will have wrapped up in Albany. This fiscal year, as the annual process of receiving, analyzing and modifying the Governor’s 2018-19 Executive Budget proposals continued into the month of March, we were faced with a variety of challenges from a variety of fronts. Many were related to a $4 billion structural deficit cited by the Governor, and prospective funding cuts from the federal government. With that in mind, this year’s budget adoption process was a particularly difficult one.

The final, $168.3 billion 2018-19 adopted state budget was the result of many hours of planning and difficult decisions. The Assembly and Senate worked to finalize the budget after taking action on our respective one house budget resolutions. The 2018-19 fiscal year began on April 1, by which time all aspects of the budget were finalized and adopted.

This year’s education budget, as proposed by the Governor, saw small increases in total state aid for all school districts. After our revisions, the final budget provided (all figures in percentage increase over 2017-18 totals, without building aid) a 4.4 percent increase to the Tonawanda City School District, 1.53 percent increase to Ken-Ton, 3.17 percent increase to North Tonawanda, 3.7 percent increase to Sweet Home and 3.36 percent increase to Buffalo.

This year’s budget allots an additional $12.1 million to community colleges in the SUNY system, with Commu-nity College Base Aid now at $2,847 per full-time equivalent student. I am pleased to report that Bundy Aid, a source of funding for independent colleges and universities in New York State for 50 years, remained in the bud-get after the Governor’s executive bud-get included a proposal to eliminate it. Alarming these institutions and many legislators, the Governor had instead proposed a plan that would provide funds for a competitive Higher Educa-tion Capital Matching Grants program. Independent colleges said this was not sufficient, so I worked tirelessly to en-sure that Bundy Aid was not removed from the final version of the New York State budget.

Budget Process Completed for 2018-19 State Fiscal Year

District Office: 3514 Delaware Avenue, Kenmore, NY 14217 • 716-873-2540 • schimmingerr@nyassembly.gov

ADVOCATING FOR INDEPENDENT COLLEGES

In February, Canisius College students came to Albany to successfully lobby in support of maintaining Bundy Aid, which benefits independent institutions of higher learning throughout New York State, on behalf of their school. The group, including advisor Neil Savoy (center, in red shirt) met in Assembly-man Schimminger’s Albany office to discuss the importance of a variety of student aid programs as 2018 budget discussions were underway.

Dear Friend,

Thank you for your interest in staying informed on what is happening in our state government now that the 2018-19 state budget has been adopted.

This year, we confronted a significant challenge in putting together a fiscally responsible and sound budget in the face of a looming structural deficit and various federal funding cuts. With budget season over, I remain commit-ted to ensuring that our community remains strong.

As always, I sincerely thank you for the privilege of representing the com-munities of Ken-Ton, the Twin Cities and Riverside and Black Rock in Buf-falo, and I hope you find the informa-tion in this newsletter helpful.

I look forward to continuing to meet the needs of my friends and neigh-bors in the 140th Assembly District. As always, if you have any questions, concerns or comments, or require any further information, please feel free to contact my district office at 716-873-2540 or by email at schimmingerr@nyassembly.gov.

Sincerely,

...continues on back

“On behalf of New York’s 100+ private, not-for-profit colleges and universities, a big thank you for the restoration of Bundy Aid and opportunity program funding and the expansion of STEM in this year’s budget...A win for our schools and students is a win for communities across the state that rely upon our campuses to anchor their local economies. Thank you for playing such an important role in bringing home that win.”

- Mary Beth Labate, president, Commission on Independent

Colleges and Universities

Economic Development Funding to Bolster Business, Job Growth in Western New York

With the 2018-19 budget adoption behind us, I am pleased that I have been able to ensure that there are a number of key economic develop-ment entities in our region that have received funding. As chairman of the Assembly Economic Development Committee, I am confident that these initiatives will contribute to economic and job growth here in Western New York.

Small Business Innovation Research – A total of $500,000 has been set aside statewide for a new state program to ensure technology-oriented small businesses, some of the major employers in our region, continue surviving and thriving in a challenging environment. Based on a bill that I authored, this initiative included in the budget will allow small businesses to access services that will give them a competitive advantage in seeking federal R&D contracts, including grant writing opportunities and ways to keep costs manageable. The federal SBIR program provides competitive grants to help small businesses com-mercialize cutting edge products, helping to bring these innovations from the research stage to production.

Canisius College – A total of $200,000 has been earmarked for Canisius College to benefit the college’s Center for Professional De-velopment and Women’s Business Center. The Center for Professional Development offers a range of programs to young professionals to ensure that they are able to pursue careers in business, the non-profit sector and other fields. With women making up a larger percentage of the workforce than ever before, the Women’s Business Center is essential to ensuring that women become successful entrepreneurs.

Technology Development Organizations – These non-profit regional entities, including Insyte Consulting here in Western New York help manufacturing businesses increase productivity and quality, decrease costs and lead time, and innovate in their operations and market. The state’s network of regional TDOs will receive an additional $609,000 this year in support statewide, for a total of $2 million overall, to help

offset funding reductions by Empire State Development in the Manu-facturing Extension Program that the TDOs administer in each region.

Centers of Excellence – $11.9 million will benefit the 11 Centers of Excellence across New York State, an increase of $3.2 million over the amount originally proposed by the Governor for this year, which brings them back to 2017-18 levels. As a result, the University at Buffalo will again receive $1 million for its Center of Excellence in Materials Informatics, which I helped establish four years ago, and another $1 million for its CoE in Bioinformatics in Life Sciences. These and other CoE’s were created to foster collaboration between the academic research community and the business sector to develop and commercialize new products and technologies, to promote critical private sector investment in emerging high-technology fields in New York State, and to create and expand technology-related businesses and employment.

World Trade Center Buffalo Niagara – Funding in the amount of $50,000 for the WTCBN will go toward the cost of providing semi-nars, consulting services, certification programs and other services that directly benefit manufacturers in Western New York that currently export their products, or are looking to expand into new markets. Also of note are technical assistance and other outreach programs to help businesses in this area compete on a global scale and build a larger presence in today’s evolving economy.

Buffalo Niagara International Trade Gateway Organization – ITGO, a mainstay of the region’s growing logistics industry, is a not-for-profit organization that has a significant impact on economic development in our region. This funding ($50,000) will be used to promote Buffalo-Niagara as a growing center of logistics, increase freight movement, improve outreach to local manufacturers and continue to work with other economic development entities that promote the growth of local employers.

PROMOTING HOMEGROWN INNOVATION

Assemblyman Schimminger participated in the August grand opening of the Praxair Innovation Center at the company’s North American engineering and R&D headquarters in the Town of Tonawanda. One of our area’s largest employers, Praxair Inc. is a global industrial gas supplier with operations in 50 countries. After discussing state initiatives aimed at boosting advanced manufacturing and the innovation economy, Schim-minger shared a happy moment with Anne K. Roby, Senior Vice President of Praxair, Inc., and Terry Bourgeois, Site Manager at Praxair’s Tonawanda facility.

ENCOURAGING HOMEGROWN TALENT

In March, Assemblyman Robin Schimminger presented Kenmore East High School senior Ja-cob Aguglia (right) with a citation honoring his accomplishments and congratulating him on his participation in the All-State Vocal Jazz Ensemble in Albany. Representatives of the New York State School Music Association were in Albany for the annual Joseph Sugar NYSSMA Day. Aguglia, who will be a theater major at Shenandoah University next fall, is pictured with his parents, Cindy and Phil Aguglia, and younger brother Griffin. Phil Aguglia is the band director at Kenmore East.

Over the past months, I have committed myself to securing legislative funding for several projects in Ken-Ton, the Twin Cit-

ies and Buffalo that were in need of assistance.

Buffalo Religious Arts Center ($50,000) – The Buffalo Religious Arts Center, located in a former church in the Black Rock neighborhood of the City of Buffalo, is dedicated to displaying religious art from more than 70 local churches and houses of worship that have since closed. This funding will go toward restoration of the center’s historic stained glass windows. The project will also include instal-lation of storm windows to protect the stained glass.

Carousel Society of the Niagara Frontier ($125,000) – This grant will be used to reconstruct and repur-pose a collapsed storage building that will be turned into an exhibit hall for a band organ collection. The building is part of the society’s Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum complex in North Tonawanda, which celebrates the city’s history of manufactur-ing carousels and band organs, including original Wurlitzer Company pieces.

Town of Tonawanda ($750,000) – The town has requested capital funding for the purchase of two garbage packer trucks, a motor vehicle fuel us-age computer system and pool filter liners for the Town’s Aquatic Center. A significant portion of the money will also be used to replace aging sidewalks on municipal rights-of-way throughout the town.

City of Tonawanda ($125,000) – The city has re-quested funding to be used for the installation of a digital outdoor sign to display messages in front of City Hall and the construction of a new Marine and Dive Operations Center for the Police Depart-ment’s Marine Division.

City of North Tonawanda ($138,000) – The city has requested this funding to complete the Chil-dren’s Remembrance Garden Walk in Brauer Park and for the 5th Avenue Storm Sewer Separation Project. The latter will include separation of storm sewers from sanitary sewers and installation of new manholes and catch basins along a portion of 5th Avenue.

Proposal to Establish Database of Deals,

Keep Track of Money

With a number of high-profile corruption scandals coming to light across the state, there have increasingly been calls from both con-stituents and many legislators to increase the levels of transparency and accountability in state government. It is one thing to punish people after the fact. Just as important, we should work to prevent wrongdoing before it happens. With the end of budget season, I remain committed to ensuring that this remains a priority.

By way of an economic development transparency and account-ability bill I sponsored, I sought to establish a mechanism to allow the public to more easily keep track of the state’s many economic development financial transactions and know what state economic development government officials are doing with taxpayers’ money. While the Assembly and Senate opted to include slightly different versions of this bill in their respective One-House Budgets, we could not get the Governor on board to include it in this year’s state budget.

A.8175-A (Schimminger) amends the Economic Development Law to create a “Database of Deals,” whereby the Empire State Development Corporation would establish a searchable database of financial transactions, particularly the larger ones that have been the subject of recent corruption scandals that have been the object of public attention.

Information in this database would include not only names of re-cipients, but also what benefits they received, for how long, and “a statement of compliance” indicating if any other State agency has reduced, cancelled or recaptured economic development benefits from a participant. This searchable database would be easy to use and downloadable, either in whole or in part. Since some $4 billion is spent annually in New York State on economic development and business subsidies, this would make it easier to spot if something doesn’t add up and to hold the responsible officials accountable.

Various citizen groups and other entities advocating for greater responsibility in government, such as Reinvent Albany, have voiced support for this bill. Other related measures they support include another measure I am sponsoring to make not-for-profits created by state government subject to the state’s Freedom of Information and open meeting laws.

If the Database of Deals becomes law, New Yorkers would finally be able to more clearly see what organizations and businesses received what subsidies, from what programs and all of the infor-mation would be in one place, rather than piecemeal across various websites that are cumbersome and often difficult to access. And, importantly, both legislators and citizens could have a clearer op-portunity to judge whether these programs, as applied to particular deals, produce a good return on the state’s investment. As your elected representative, I plan to keep fighting to ensure this plan becomes a reality in our state government.

Capital Funding Secured for Several Projects

in District 140

YOU NEVER KNOW WHO YOU’LL MEET!

In February, Assemblyman Schimminger visited the GM Tonawanda Engine Plant on River Road, one of the largest employers in the 140th Assembly District where generations of Tonawandans have worked, to meet the plant’s new manager.

While there, he ran into Canisius College English/Com-munication Studies major Felicia Smolen, a Town of Tonawanda resident who is currently interning at the GM Plant. Serendipitously, Schimminger and Smolen both graduated from St. Francis of Assisi School and Cardinal O’Hara High School before continuing on to Canisius College, but obviously decades apart.

New York State Assembly • Albany, New York 12248 PRSRT STD.U.S. POSTAGE

PAIDAlbany, New York

Permit No. 75

Reports to You

Spring 2018

AssemblymanRobinSchimminger

CELEBRATING AN OPENING

Assemblyman Schimminger joined in a ribbon-cutting celebration at the new North Park Library in October. Pictured with Schimminger are (front row): Library Branch Manager Paul Guminski, librarian Laura Scott, library trustee Sheldon Berlow and County Legislator Peter Savage. Back row: Buffalo & Erie County Public Library Director Mary Jean Jakubowski, Senator Christopher Jacobs, North District Councilman Joseph Golombek (partially obscured), Assemblyman Sean Ryan, and library trustees Elaine Panty and Phyllis Horton.

I also objected to the Governor’s proposed cuts to library aid, as our public libraries are a valuable resource for New Yorkers of all ages. In the end, the Assembly maintained its commitment to these valuable resources, with a total of $96.6 million, an increase of $1 million over last year. An additional $34 million will benefit library capital projects.

The Governor’s executive budget also had contained a plan to impose a 14 percent surcharge on private health insurers’ profits, which was likely to increase healthcare costs for small businesses that provide insurance for employees. I strongly opposed this budget provision, which would no doubt have been reflected in higher health insurance premiums, and it was rejected.

The budget has allocated nearly $80 million toward child care expenses, including $31 million for yearly licensing inspections for child care providers and $17 million for conducting background checks on those who have been licensed to care for our children.

We earmarked a total of $250 million in funding to help fight the tragedy of the opioid crisis in New York State, including funding for services intended to prevent, treat and aid in the recovery of those who struggle with addiction. $100 million will come from a new Opioid Stewardship Fund. Also, an

additional $26 million will support the state-run Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services to further aid in recovery.

I am also pleased that another proposal in the Governor’s budget, regarding deferred tax credits for businesses, was removed from the final version of the budget. The proposed business tax plan would have deferred aggregate tax credits that were in excess of $2 million. Instead of getting the credits as promised, those businesses which were targeted for such deferred credits would have to wait to claim them over a period of three years, beginning in the 2021 tax year. Deferred credits that would have been affected by this would have included the Brownfield Tax Credit and the Historic Tax Credit, which benefit projects that clean up and reuse abandoned industrial sites and historic buildings. Curiously, other credits, like the Film Production Tax Credit and the Post Production and Commercial Production Tax Credits, which were somewhat controversial, were not among those he had slated to be put on hold.

With this year’s newly-enacted budget adopted and in place, I am pleased that I was able to work with my colleagues to improve upon the Governor’s Executive Budget and better address the needs of Western New Yorkers.

Budget Process Completed for 2018-19 State Fiscal Year ...continued