screen-shot-2016-05-17-at-2-41-47-pm-150x150-1799559The SUNY Polytechnic non-profit subsidiary at the center of a federal probe into the Buffalo Billion initiative may have violated the state Labor Law in order to steer construction jobs to area unions.

SUNY Poly’s Fort Schuyler Management Corp., the funnel through which the state is building and partially equipping a new factory for Elon Musk’s SolarCity, required that the project contractor enter into a project labor agreement (PLA) with local unions. The deal essentially promises that workers on the project will be hired through union halls.

State law allows public entities such as Fort Schuyler to require PLAs, but it also lays out clear rules for doing so. Section 222(2)a of the state Labor Law requires an official determination—commonly known as a “due-diligence study”—demonstrating how a mandatory PLA would, at least in theory, save money.

The wording of the mandatory SolarCity PLA says it was signed “at the behest of” Fort Schuyler, which would be the entity responsible by law for conducting the required due-diligence study. But when the Empire Center, citing the state Freedom of Information Law, requested a copy of the study, Fort Schuyler official Carl Kempf responded in writing that “FSMC is not in possession of the requested record.”

If Fort Schuyler truly “is not in possession of” a document it was obliged to generate, it would indicate that the entity steered work on a $750 million construction project to politically influential trade unions without making any attempt to determine whether the public interest was being served in the process. And there’s reason to doubt it would be: a 2006 Beacon Hill study found that PLAs drove up school construction costs in New York by 20 percent, and a just-completed highway project in the Hudson Valley offers a case study in how the forced use of PLAs drive up costs on highway and bridge infrastructure.

As Jim Heaney at the Investigative Post explained, Fort Schuyler is the same organization that in 2014 falsely claimed that the Freedom of Information Law didn’t apply to it, either—even as it was acting as a conduit for public funds.

Fort Schuyler’s biggest installment of those state tax dollars has, incidentally, been delayed: a meeting set for tomorrow (May 18) at which the Public Authorities Control Board was supposed to sign off on a $486 million to the corporation has now been postponed, according to The Buffalo News.

You may also like

The House GOP’s Shrinking Budget Plan Could Still Cost New York Billions

The likely impact of federal health-care cutbacks has diminished in recent days as House Republican leaders backed away from some of their bigger-ticket proposals, reducing the estimated savings to $625 billion from previous figures of $715 billion and $8 Read More

Feds Move To Close Medicaid’s ‘MCO Tax’ Loophole, Spelling Trouble for New York

New York's budget has sprung its first major leak just five days after being finalized by Governor Hochul and the Legislature. On Tuesday, federal officials announced a that would Read More

Highlights of Albany’s Bloated and Belated Budget

The state Legislature approved the last of nine budget bills Thursday evening, 38 days after the start of the fiscal year. Here are some highlights of the fiscal impact of final spending plan: Top lines Read More

Unforeseen Consequences

We acknowledge that the impact of these measures will be determined by their scope, implementation timeline, pace, and advancements in technology, infrastructure, and market dynamics.  Read More

Forcing Homes to Switch to Electric Heat is not a Good Policy

  New York has some of the most ambitious climate goals in the country: electric school buses by 2035, zero emissions electricity by 2040, etc. Why New Yorkers, who already consume less energy per capita than any state (other than Rhode Island), s Read More

How Medicaid ‘Expansion’ Changes Could Affect New York

As House Republicans consider cutbacks to federal Medicaid funding, their focus has turned to the so-called expansion population. Although the details of remain undetermined, the s Read More

How Albany Could Save Millions by Closing a Medicaid Loophole

A glitch in state insurance law is allowing doctors to collect Medicaid fees that are sometimes hundreds of times higher than the program normally pays, costing taxpayers millions of dollars a year. Read More

After Tariff Shock, Albany Should Face its New Fiscal Reality

This year, for once, state lawmakers' failure to pass a timely budget could prove to be a stroke of luck. When President Trump rolled out his on April 2, Albany leaders had not agreed on a spending plan for the f Read More