Crains New York - March 4, 2013 - (Page 10)

OPINION Beware pols bearing gifts T ake solace, businesspeople. Help is on the way. A bevy of benevolent mayoral candidates are pledging to make your lives oh so much better. They’re going to get government off your backs. They’ll lower your fines, freeze your taxes and fees, fast-track your permits. They’ll hire thousands more police officers and provide iPads for all the little children, and it won’t cost you a dime. So many wonderful things! For the next eight months, business folks and other voters had better keep their rhetoric radar fully operational. We don’t doubt that the candidates want to help entrepreneurs. But some leading candidates also want to dictate how businesses operate, even though they have no experience operating one themselves. Public Advocate Bill de Blasio is actively courting small business support by focusing on the nuisance fines that drive them bananas. That is appreciated, but at the same time he is pushing to make them provide paid time off for employees who are sick. Or have a sick family member. Or a friend with the sniffles. Maybe even a pet with separation anxiety. The sick-days plan and Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s novel proposal to expand the antidiscrimination rights of the jobless would subject businesses to lawsuits by disgruntled and even potential employees. The city needs growth in cottage industries, but not the one in which lawyers bully businesses into costly settlements. CRAIN’S ONLINE POLL City Comptroller John Liu wants to stop subsidizing individual business projects and use that savings to lower business taxes across the board. Spreading that relatively small pot of money across the entire business landscape would dilute it to the point of irrelevance while leaving the city powerless to jump-start economic development in industries and neighborhoods where it’s needed most. Meanwhile, Mr. Liu wants to raise the minimum wage to $11.50 an hour, an increase of 59%. His office has been relentless in regulating “prevailing wage” rules to force businesses to pay ever higher amounts. He supports the paid-sick-day mandate and just about any proworker idea hatched by the Working Families Party. He defends— even champions—the ever-spiraling public pension benefits that now cost taxpayers about $8 billion more annually than when Mr. Liu was first elected. Some fiduciary, he. Voters will make decisions this summer and fall that will affect them for the next four years, if not longer. They must pay close attention to make sure the candidates are not extending one arm to shake the business community’s hand while using the other to stab it in the back. When mayoral candidates talk, fire up the rhetoric radar MATTHEW GOLDSTEIN AND STANLEY S. LITOW Critical connection: education to jobs SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT PREVENT THE SEQUESTER OR LET IT HAPPEN? Stop it. The cuts would be too brutal and too quick, costing jobs and inconveniencing Americans. Let it happen. Spending cuts are needed. Any deal would be worse than doing nothing. Date of poll: Feb. 25 194 votes 45% 55% FOR THIS WEEK’S QUESTIONS: Go to www.crainsnewyork.com/poll to have your say. 10 | Crain’s New York Business | March 4, 2013 A merica’s competitiveness depends on the connection between education and employment. Ensuring that our children’s education is academically rigorous and economically relevant is of immediate national importance. The model for that education is right here. In announcing a “new challenge to redesign America’s high schools so they better equip graduates for the demands of a high-tech economy” last month, President Barack Obama cited what the city Department of Education, the City University of New York and IBM are doing at the Brooklyn school P-Tech. Speaking about how to “make sure that a high-school diploma puts our kids on a path to a good job,”the president recognized that the public-private partnership behind P-Tech enables students to earn a high-school diploma and an associate’s degree in technology. Upon graduation,they will be first in line for jobs with IBM. Gov. Andrew Cuomo just announced an agreement with IBM to open P-Tech-style schools across New York state. Such schools are under development in other states as well. New York City, despite a nearly 9% unemployment rate, has more than 300,000 unfilled positions, underscoring that much of America’s jobs problem is actually a skills problem. Most of these unfilled jobs require the technical and workplace skills that P-Tech students learn. The same is true nationwide, where 14 million more “middleskill” jobs will be created in the next decade. A nationwide replication of P-Tech can help us keep pace with the global economy and foster the talent for middleclass careers. The results of P-Tech in Brooklyn have been quite encouraging. After just two semesters, 50% of the students met CUNY’s college readiness criteria,and virtually all were promoted to the 10th grade. Half of P-Tech’s 10th-graders have completed at least one college course at the New York City College of Technology. By the end of the 10th grade,students will have completed an average of 14 college credits toward their associate’s degree. This is being achieved within standard budgetary constraints, in an open-admissions public school in one of the city’s most economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Our nation has always understood the connection between education and economic growth. The extension of schooling past the eighth grade and the G.I. Bill paid huge dividends. The president’s and governor’s calls to connect education to employment present a huge opportunity for our nation, our state and our children. It is time for us to act. Matthew Goldstein is chancellor of the City University of New York. Stanley S. Litow is IBM’s vice president of corporate citizenship and corporate affairs and a former New York City deputy schools chancellor. CRAIN’S NEW YORK BUSINESS editor in chief Rance Crain publisher, vp Jill R. Kaplan EDITORIAL editor Glenn Coleman managing editor Jeremy Smerd deputy managing editors Valerie Block, Erik Ipsen assistant managing editor Erik Engquist senior producer, news Elisabeth Butler Cordova news producer Amanda Fung contributing editor Elaine Pofeldt columnists Greg David, Alair Townsend crain’s health pulse editor Barbara Benson senior reporters Theresa Agovino, Aaron Elstein, Lisa Fickenscher, Matthew Flamm reporters Chris Bragg, Matt Chaban, Daniel Geiger, Andrew J. 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All rights reserved. ®CityBusiness is a registered trademark of MCP Inc., used under license agreement. CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC. BOARD OF DIRECTORS chairman Keith E. Crain president Rance Crain treasurer Mary Kay Crain Cindi Crain executive vp, operations William Morrow senior vp, group publisher Gloria Scoby vp/production, manufacturing David Kamis chief information officer Paul Dalpiaz founder G.D. Crain Jr. (1885-1973) chairman Mrs. G.D. Crain Jr. (1911-1996) secretary Merrilee Crain (1942-2012) http://www.crainsnewyork.com/subscribe http://www.crainsnewyork.com/advertise http://www.crainsnewyork.com/events http://www.crainsnewyork.com/poll

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crains New York - March 4, 2013

Crains New York - March 4, 2013
IN THE BOROUGHS
IN THE MARKETS
THE INSIDER
SMALL BUSINESS
REAL ESTATE DEALS
BUSINESS PEOPLE
OPINION
GREG DAVID
REPORT: 2013 ELECTIONS
CLASSIFIEDS
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
SOURCE LUNCH
OUT AND ABOUT
SNAPS

Crains New York - March 4, 2013