START-UP NY was supposed to create thousands of jobs throughout the state, costing you millions in tax dollars. But has it been worth your money so far? A new report shows the program has only created 408 new jobs.

The state’s report, quietly published on Friday just before the holiday weekend, also came out three months late. The numbers it shows aren’t impressive. As we’ve reported before, START-UP NY uses tax free zones at colleges and universities across the state to attract businesses to move here.

So far over 150 companies have received more than a million dollars in tax benefits. The state has spent tens of millions of dollars on ads promoting START-UP since the program kicked off two years ago. The report shows 76 jobs were created by the program in 2014 and 332 were created last year. But that’s not anywhere close to what it’s supposed to create – 2,085 jobs in five years.

Rachel Spotts: What do you make of it?

Ken Girardin, Empire Center for Public Policy: It’s not surprising that Empire State Development would wait more than three months to let these numbers out the door. They don’t show anything good about the program. This program was never meant to be transformative. It was never positioned to be a savior for upstate New York. If anything, it’s been a distraction from talking about why companies don’t want to locate here in the first place or why the ones here already are looking to leave.

Girardin says state lawmakers need to look at changing policies to improve the business climate. He says it’s going to take a complete overhaul to get companies to not only want to move here, but to actually stay here.

© 2016 WHEC