NY State: Better, Greener Technology

Cesar Perales, Secretary of State of New York, detailed Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plan for New York. He presented a powerpoint and fielded questions at Ramapo Town Hall Monday night. He looked at several aspects from economic development to education standards.

The big push was “NY one-two punch: Jobs and Education.” With education, the state’s new plan is to look at “More and better," including more and longer school days and full pre-K. Read more about Cuomo's education goals in this Patch post. 

Economic development was an important topic during Perales’ presentation.

Part of Cuomo’s economic development program is to build on the Regional Economic Development Councils, which have been successful.

Other areas of economic development include:

• Technology
• Economy of Tomorrow
  

Technology

The economic challenge with technology is its transfer from academia to commercialization.

• NY universities rank 2nd nationally in total research dollars spent ($5B) (California is 1st).
• However, New York attracts only 4% of the nation’s venture capital while California attracts 47%.
• New York only ranks 22nd in the nation in industry-sponsored research compared to North Carolina which is 1st. 

A way to fix this problem is to create new Innovation Hot Spots, which will create ten higher ed/private sector high tech incubators for start up companies through a competition. 

Innovation Hot Spots will be tax-free zones (no business, real property & sales taxes)

• Funding for “one-stop” growth support services (e.g. legal, accounting).
• State investment through a $50 million NYS Innovation Venture Capital Fund.
• Five winners among REDC regions a year for two years.

Cuomo is looking to change the culture in order to encourage tech transfer and commercialization of ideas; to do this, he’ plans to create the “Innovation NY Network.”

The Innovation NY Network will be based on the highly successful Connect Model from San Diego and will generate and support business deals.

• The network will be a collaboration between venture capitalists and higher education to foster commercialization.
• It will also reform regulations around Intellectual Property & other regulatory barriers that slow commercialization in New York.

The state also plans to reduce costs of doing business in New York and reduce the burden of unemployment insurance and workers’ comp.

• Reform the workers’ comp program through streamlining and simplifying the system to lower business costs
• Reform Unemployment Insurance program by ending the borrowing to pay benefits for the first time in state history. It will reduce business costs, while also increasing benefits to workers for the first time since 1999.
• Both will result in $1.3 billion in savings to businesses

"We have a system that does not work,” said Perales. “We are in fact borrowing money from the federal government to pay for our unemployment insurance plans. (Cuomo) wants to reform that and he’s got a couple ideas on how to do that."

Economy of Tomorrow

Economy of Tomorrow: Making NY the Leader in the Clean Tech Economy

• Create the NY Green Bank, a $1 billion bank, to leverage public dollars with private sector match to spur the clean economy. 
• Extend the NY-Sun Solar Jobs program at $150M annually for 10 years to increase solar panel installations for homes and businesses. “Another new idea is to continue and accelerate the investments we’ve been making in solar. Solar energy is the future of this country and developing energy," siad Perales. "We can get more and more people to use solar to create jobs. Not just to create panels, but to actually install it. This is an area that we have been lacking"
• Create the Charge NY Program to invest in an electric car network to reduce reliance on fossil fuels by installing a statewide network of charging stations and providing charging infrastructure tax credits. "We're going to have state-wide networks of charging stations," said Perales. "Right now, private investors won't do it because there are not enough people with electric cars."
• Create a Cabinet Level Energy Czar. The diagram is attached to this article. It goes in this order: Governor > Director of State Ops > Energy Czar > DPS, NYSERDA, NYPA, LIPA. 

Check back with Patch for more on Perales' presentation