ORANGE COUNTY, N.Y.—The Orange County Industrial Development Agency is investigating why some companies receiving tax benefits are failing to meet their job creation promises and considering new policies to push underperformers to improve.
Industrial Development Agency CEO Bill Fioravanti said at a Governance Committee meeting on Nov. 17 that 32 of the 39 companies, referred to as projects, receiving tax benefits from the development agency reached their job creation goals at some point over the last 10 years, and four more projects have come within 10 percent of their goal in the same time.
The promised number of full-time employees a company promises to have is a major part in deciding whether the project will receive tax benefits from the development agency.
At a Dec. 15 press conference, State Sen. James Skoufis called for the agency to claw back the benefits they had given to companies that are not meeting their promised job creation numbers—specifically for 15 companies that a recent development agency state monitor report showed did not have satisfactory employment numbers in 2024.
Fioravanti said that the agency has spent the last several months communicating with the projects that were underperforming, and he presented the reasons each of them were not meeting their required employee numbers.
USAI Lighting in New Windsor employed 190 people in 2024, and has 206 employees currently, Fioravanti said. The company started operating in 2015, with an employment goal of 234. The company exceeded its goal in 2019 with 244 employees but has since declined. Job deficit records obtained by The Epoch Times from the agency show that most years, the company had between 190 to 230 employees.
Fioravanti said USAI Lighting told him the company struggled through the COVID-19 pandemic and is having trouble finding replacements for employees they lost. The company says there was a fall in sales the past two years but that they are still looking to fill three or four engineer positions.
The company’s employment record dropped from 190 in 2015 to 46 in 2016, which they said was an accounting error, as they accidentally put in the number of construction workers they employed instead.
Fioravanti said that one of the most concerning companies is Crystal Run Healthcare, which is now a subsidiary of Optum Tri-State. The agency spent months trying to contact the company and discovered recently that the agency’s contact for Crystal Run had left the company.
The new Monroe healthcare center currently employs 145 people, Optum Tri-State president Jonathan Nasser told Fioravanti. The promised new jobs number was 452.
Fioravanti said Nasser told him the goal of 452 was surprising, as Crystal Run’s busiest location had an employment of 364 at its highest.
The agency CEO said Nasser cited fiscal challenges, a low amount of available physicians, remote work, and the transition after the sale of the company as reasons for low employment. The job deficit records report that the Monroe location’s highest employment level was 159 people in 2019.
Nasser told Fioravanti that Crystal Run’s staff and legal team are reviewing their reports to the agency and their records to verify accuracy.
The project that Fioravanti said was having the most issues is the Glen Arden senior living community in Goshen, which is facing significant financial turmoil. The agency CEO said that even with tax benefits, Glen Arden has failed to pay the taxes they are responsible for to their local jurisdiction.
The agency has considered warning Glen Arden about possible recapture of tax benefit money, but has held off on the action due to the pending sale of the business. Glen Arden told Fioravanti that they expect a close on the sale, and Fioravanti said that would be the best outcome.
Glen Arden started with an employee count of 238 in the early 1990s, and they promised to create 105 more jobs. The agency record shows that they have not had above 94 employees between 2014 and 2024.
A dozen other companies and their situations were discussed during the governance meeting. Many of the reported underperformers say the numbers in the monitor’s report are clerical errors on their part. Other companies are suffering from poor financials or difficulty finding new employees.
The agency is considering creating a policy for a warning system for companies that are not performing as promised, the CEO said.
Fioravanti told The Epoch Times on Dec. 21 that the agency has had formal discussions about pursuing recapture of benefits for projects that didn’t fulfill requirements. The agency will continue to pursue the matter further after they collect updated data and explanations.
