| Company | News America/New York Post (second package) |
| Date Announced | 7/20/1998 |
| Site | Port Morris, South Bronx |
| Total Subsidy | $24.4 million |
|
??? |
| Promised Job Creation | 100 |
| Promised Job Retention | 807 |
| Length of Contract | ??? |
| Competing Sites | Jersey City, N.J. |
| Conditions | If the Post doesn't create 79 new printing jobs and 21 new positions at corporate headquarters within three years, the paper will have to return to the state $4.9 million of the $12.9 million grant. |
| Notes | The state made an
outright grant of $12.9 million to Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, which
also reaped $4 million in sales tax breaks and $7.5 million in energy
savings to help the paper build a printing plant in the Bronx. The paper
promised to create 100 new jobs by 2002, which puts the cost of the
package at $244,000 per new job created. Failure to create the new jobs
obliges the Post to repay part of the subsidy package. Because the plant
is located in an Empowerment Zone, the facility also qualified for
additional millions in tax benefits and training grants. This was the second deal in two years for the Post's parent company, News America, which received a $20.7 million package in 1996 (see separate entry). Taken with earlier deals for the New York Times and Daily News, this package provides an example of firms demanding that governments match incentives given to competitors. The New York Times received a $29 million tax package in 1992 for a new printing plant in College Point, Queens. In 1993, The Daily News moved its printing operations to Jersey City after New Jersey gave the paper $35 million in cash and tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks. Murdoch anticipated this trend in 1987, after NBC received a package worth $100 million, when he released the following statement: "With the mayor's office prepared to offer NBC a significant cut in taxes, it is only fair and equitable that city hall provide News America and all other media companies with the same tax concessions." Numerous other media firms got in ahead of Murdoch's, including Bertelsmann, CBS, ABC and Viacom, but Murdoch's double dip of subsidies (totaling $45.1 million) is quite large and includes one of New York state's largest-ever outright grants to a corporation. |
| Corporate Notes | Rupert Murdoch's News America owns New York Post, New York Magazine and Fox Television. According to the Daily News, Rupert Murdoch's net worth in 1996 was an estimated $4.8 billion. |
| Critics | "I
think it seems like New York once again is getting fleeced by a business
that probably had no intention of leaving New York. This time New York got
taken to the cleaners more than on any other deal - a $13 million grant,
that's the largest grant that I've seen" said Jonathan Bowles, an
aide to Senator Franz Leichter (The Times Union, 7/18/98). New York Times, 7/21/98: "Critics say the Daily News [which moved printing facilities to New Jersey] has had occasional problems transporting newspapers through the tunnels into Manhattan during the morning rush, a problem that would discourage other newspapers from moving operations to New Jersey." |
| A
note on sources -- or why many of these profiles appear incomplete.
They are. Good Jobs New York compiled the numbers in these profiles from
press releases and news accounts of the deals. Unfortunately, more
detailed information on these subsidies is very difficult to obtain --
even though it should be readily available to the public. In many cases,
neither the company nor the city nor state released certain information,
particularly the terms of the agreement, i.e., the conditions which the
company had to meet in order to receive the subsidy. It should also be
noted that the value of the subsidy may not end up being equal to the
value estimated at the time of the agreement. And it should not be assumed
that the actual number of jobs retained and created will be the same as
the numbers predicted.
Because the public deserves easy access to information about how taxpayer dollars are being spent, Good Jobs New York will update these profiles as we uncover more information. Good Jobs New York - May 25, 2001 |
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