OSWEGO, NY – Community members, elected officials and local business owners filled the riverside room at Quality Inn and Suites recently to participate in a round table discussion with New York State Assemblyman Will Barclay.
At the third round table discussion hosted so far this year by the Greater Oswego-Fulton Chamber of Commerce, Barclay discussed areas of concern on the state level and addressed questions from anyone in attendance.
Introduced by Greg Mills, executive director of the chamber, Barclay was identified for his role as the NYS Assemblyman representing the 120th district as well as his position as Deputy Minority Leader and Ranking Minority Member on the Assembly Insurance Committee and standing committee assignments on the Energy, Judiciary, Rules, and Ways and Means committees as well as a frontrunner in the fight to keep the James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant open.
“His dedication and commitment to our community and its constituents has served us well as he has fought for and represented the 120th district passionately since the beginning,” said Mills.
As a frontrunner in the fight for FitzPatrick, Barclay noted this as one of his main areas of interest in his overview of concerns along with minimum wage, paid family leave, ethics reform and briefly touching on the budget progress.
With an April 1 deadline, Assemblyman Barclay foresees a timely response in the governor’s proposed $145 billion budget.
He noted the 1.6% budget increase and also highlighted the positive outlook on revenue, saying that the state is doing fairly well in funding. Seeing as Wall Street did well this year, the revenues did well because about 35% of the state revenue comes from Wall Street, he said.
One of the challenges presented with the budget comes from school funding, he continued.
“The big challenge is obviously school funding which continues to always be a big challenge, it’s probably one of the most important things we do in state budget. The governor has proposed a billion dollar increase in school aid, both the senate majority and assembly majority haven’t come out with the details of their one house resolutions… but interestingly, I think the assembly came out with $2.5 billion increase, which is over twice as much as the governor in school aid and I think the senate came out with a $2 billion increase,” he said.
With that, opening up questions to those in attendance, the focus quickly went back to the fight for FitzPatrick Power Plant and it’s impending closure as plant operator, Entergy has expressed desire to close the plant and in turn, terminate more than 600 local jobs.
Barclay plans to continue his fight for FitzPatrick, noting that he has legislation in place now with majority sponsors to ensure the plant remains open and believes that even if it doesn’t pass, it will keep the conversation going and the governor engaged because ultimately, he has the power to keep the plant open.
He claims that Entergy has been pretty clear that they no longer want to run FitzPatrick and therefore, the focus has been shifted from negotiations with Entergy to finding another operator to run the plant.
In response to a question regarding the $60 million tax credit to the private industry as expressed in his legislation, Barclay exemplifies how the governor has given tax credit to subsidized industry with his reference to the film industry, an industry he feels does not need government assistance yet received a $450 million tax credit.
Out of the $450 million, $20 million went to The Jimmy Fallon Show in NYC that generates 200 jobs, he explained.
“Here we are talking about the same type of tax credit but it’d be for FitzPatrick and it’s $60 million, the number picked because it’s what Entergy is losing and it could go to any operator, not just for Entergy so if we get a new operator in there they could qualify for it. We have 615 jobs out there with very good salaries, seems to me for that reason alone it’s worth doing,” he said.
Aside from his personal take, Barclay says from a public policy standpoint it is important for NYS to support nuclear energy.
While it may be struggling economically right now because of low gas prices, he says eventually natural gas prices will go up. If all nuclear energy plants were shut down, there would be a strong reliance on natural gas and thus in turn will drive up the cost of electricity.
Even more so, nuclear power is clean energy in that it doesn’t emit CO2. The governor has a proposal to have 50% of all of NYS generators to be non-emitting CO2 by the year 2030, however Barclay feels without nuclear power in that equation, the proposal will never make it.
He continued to explain his attempt to recognize nuclear as clean energy and subsidize it in the same way that wind and solar energy are subsidized in NYS, which provides about 3% of generation for the state.
Switching direction, Barclay addressed the issue of paid family leave and his beliefs on the matter.
While he feels sympathetic and understands the need for paid family leave, he felt the legislation pushed through the assembly was a solution that was worse than the problem as it was “so broad you could drive a truck through it,” he said.
He found three major flaws with the legislation, first he noted that it would be much like a regressive tax seeing as each employer will put in a small weekly base rate but the amount you receive would be based on income, so while everyone pays the same amount, those with higher wage earners will receive more back.
Second, if you’re in a collective bargain agreement that already provides paid family leave, this would have to be in addition to that, he said. Therefore, if your employer provides eight weeks of paid family leave, this assembly proposed bill would add 12 weeks and essentially, there would be 20 total weeks.
And lastly, while he said there would likely not be a lot of abuse to this system, he would like some language in the legislation that would prevent any abuse to the system aside from its intended use, but currently he feels this bill is so broad that it could easily be abused.
“I think people might be more open, I’d be more open in supporting paid family leave if it was a little more reasonable than what the assembly is proposing. Now, this may get negotiated. We’ll see where it goes in the budget, the governor hasn’t really gone into specifics with what he is proposing, so I don’t know,” said Barclay.
The other issue Barclay addressed as a concern was the debate surrounding minimum wage.
Although the fast food minimum wage increase to $15 per hour has been phased in and is currently happening, there has been a recent push by state government for a $15 minimum wage for all.
Recently, Barclay put out a survey for business owners and was pleased with the amount of response, but felt the majority responses of business owners were expected.
90% of the respondents to the survey were against raising minimum wage, similarly 64% said they would have to lay off employees if minimum wage was raised.
Barclay firmly believes that we all want to help our neighbors and help the working poor, but raising the minimum wage is not the way to do that.
Instead, to specifically target the working poor, he feels the income tax credit is a more reasonable way to reference those direct individuals and feels that has been very successful and could be expanded if needed for a better response.
Many business owners present at the round table voiced their opinions on having to lay off employees, fears for not-for profit businesses and fears of flight of industry.
To argue the point of the governor in that the implementation of a new minimum wage would lower the need for those on state assistance, he feels is counterproductive as many people would lose their job instead and then be reliant on unemployment and assistance to survive.
It would be a 67% increase to get to a $15 minimum wage across the board and Barclay feels a large voice is coming from NYC, where he feels the downstate political voice has a much stronger presence that the upstate political voice.
Transitioning into ethics reform, Barclay said the numbers show that “NYC really does run the assembly.”
However, Barclay feels little changes within the assembly will make for a large difference.
First, to reform the committee structure within the assembly. Currently, there’s no public hearings, very little debate, no testimony from experts in the field so legislation sails right through, then will try to debate them or stop them on the floor. Barclay proposes a more strenuous committee structure to benefit the public of the state.
Second, he feels the assembly is very leadership heavy in the control of what bills get to the floor. He said, there are times when a bill won’t get to the floor even if there is a majority that would support it and further, feels that everyone should get a fair hearing on all bills.
“These are just some simple, common sense reforms that would have a big impact on the state,” he said.
He feels these small reforms would work better than implementing a full time legislature.
Although the governor was pushing for a full time legislature, Barclay feels this would create an even less involved legislature and that a citizens legislature is what is best for the state.
However, there is a general division of opinions for this from people within the legislature. The 30-40% of legislators that have outside income would like to see the legislature stay the way it is, while those without outside income would like to become a full time legislature, he said.
Barclay remains hopeful and says many of these points of contention will be negotiated.
“I think one of the most important things I do is constituent services,” he said. “So if anyone has a state issue, please reach out to me and I can help you through the state process… Or if you have any concerns or thoughts, we always appreciate a phone call.”
The next Greater Oswego-Fulton Chamber of Commerce round table will be with Chuck Gijanto, President/CEO of Oswego Health on April 5 starting at 3 p.m. at Springside at Seneca Hill.
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