GOSHEN – State Senator James Skoufis (D, Cornwall), chairman of the Senate Investigations and Government Operations Committee, Wednesday asked the Orange County District Attorney’s Office to investigate any potential criminality in the Orange County Industrial Development Agency’s approval of more than $2.25 million in incentives to Mack Bros., Ltd./Milmar Food Group in Goshen.
Financial incentives are granted to businesses that maintain they could not move forward with their project “but for” the incentives.
Skoufis’ committee said the “but for” principle was “summarily ignored” when the company stated in its application that the project would go forward regardless of whether they were awarded the tax breaks – yet the senator noted the IDA granted the incentives.
“It’s disappointing that the new administration is in many ways operating similarly to the old administration – certainly the old administration got slapped with felony charges and convictions – and so I am not suggesting that is happening here – but the same approach, the same culture persists, and that is again, taxpayers be damned,” he said. “We’re going to do whatever we want to do to hand out effectively blank checks to any corporation that walks through their doors.”
The findings of the senator’s investigation also showed “a sustained pattern of deception” where Milmar relayed to the Goshen Town Planning Board in April 2022 that no job creation was anticipated – “presumably in order to skirt concerns about water, sewer, parking capacity, and other site planning issues that might show their process – then, just a few months later, articulated to the Orange County IDA that in fact 50 new jobs would be created – all in order to coax the agency’s support and secure tax breaks.”
Skoufis said Milmar “didn’t need those tax breaks (and) publicly admitted they didn’t need these tax breaks, then proceeded to lie to the Orange County IDA. Yet, the IDA granted these tax breaks anyway.”
Meanwhile, Orange County DA David Hoovler said he will look into the matter.
“We are going to go through it with a fine-tooth comb and see if there is anything there that we can do a criminal case on, but in our initial look this report deals a lot more with bad governance and a poor cultural for economic development than it does criminal activity,” he said.
A state appointed monitor is expected to be named next month to oversee all activities and decisions of the Orange County IDA.
