Ulster County, N.Y., Development Agency Drops Wage Limit to Entice Developer

By Paul Brooks, The Times Herald-Record, Middletown, N.Y.

Dec. 7–KINGSTON — The Ulster County Industrial Development Agency board cancelled its prevailing wage requirement to keep a $12 million deal in Kingston, but even those concessions might not be enough.

“This is a slap in the face of every union person here,” an irate Sam Fratto, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union business agent, told a couple of hundred union workers after the crucial vote last night. “Now there is no limit on what can happen on that project.”

The IDA board voted last night to let a local developer pay less than the prevailing wage, or average trades hourly rate, during the construction phase of a proposed project.

The developer is Empire Merchants North, which includes Colony Liquors, a company with 70 years of history in the city. But Selkirk, outside Albany, has a better offer on the table than Kingston and Ulster County. The vote last night by the Ulster IDA was crucial to closing the gap of $2 million to $3 million, local officials said last night. Between 200 and 300 local jobs are at stake, more if the business expands down the road.

“We need this … to be competitive and to keep good jobs in Ulster County,” said March Gallagher, chairwoman of the IDA.

Fratto said union representatives had crafted a package that closed the 19 percent difference in costs blamed on the prevailing wage requirement of the IDA. In fact, the unions had offered a deal that could more than erase that difference.

“Too late,” Gallagher said. The developer cannot rebid the project at this point.

Steve Finkel, economic development director for the city, said the IDA move cut $1 million off the gap. How much of a gap remains, he refused to say.

What’s next? City Mayor James Sottile is going to push the county and the Kingston School District for property tax cuts, Finkel said. Time is short, he said.

“Everybody should be paid a living wage,” Finkel said. “We are not happy, but it is something that allows us to compete.”

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