The
Economic Development Merger. Right idea, wrong direction.By SHERRY HALBROOK
The governor’s Executive Budget proposal would merge seven state entities of various kinds.
The Department of Economic Development (DED) and the Foundation for Science, Technology and Innovation (NYSTAR) would merge with Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC).
That one really rankles PEF because a state agency, DED, would be absorbed by a public-benefit corporation, ESDC.
“This is backward,” said PEF President Ken Brynien. “State agencies should be absorbing off-budget shadow agencies and public-benefit corporations, not the other way around.
“The governor is proposing to take a state agency operation, that’s held to the highest standards of transparency and accountability as well as merit-and-fitness in hiring and promotions, and hand it off to an organization with off-budget funding, minimal accountability and transparency and no civil service standards or constraints on staffing,” Brynien said.
Other mergers or absorptions proposed in the budget are:
• The state Department of Taxation and Finance would host the operations of the Office of Real Property Services;
• The state Division of the Lottery would host the operations of the state Racing and Wagering Board;
• The State Employment Relations Board would be eliminated and its functions absorbed by the Public Employment Relations Board;
• The New York State Theatre Institute would merge with the Empire State Plaza Performing Arts Center Corporation (“The Egg”);
• The Office of the Welfare Inspector General would merge with the Office of the Medicaid Inspector General; and
• The Northeastern Queens Nature and Historical Preserve Commission and the Hudson River Valley Greenway
Communities Council and Conservancy would merge into the state Department of State.
