With the state budget out of the way, Democrats in the State Senate are now focusing on IDA reform.

The Dems sent out a press release late yesterday to announce that they've moved an IDA bill, sponsored by Senator Antoine Thompson, a Buffalo-area Democrat, out of committee. Sam Hoyt, another Buffalo-area Democrat, is the sponsor of an identical bill in the Assembly, which is still in committee.

The bills make a lot of changes to the ways that the agencies operate and have been pushed by IDA critics for a long time. Among them are inclusion of school board, local government, and environmental group membership to IDA boards, as well as criteria for assessing the local impact of IDA projects.

These bills are the same legislation that local IDA's are worried about, because of the wage standards. The bill would require prevailing wage on IDA-backed construction projects. It would also require that companies receiving IDA benefits pay local median wages or better - $15.42 in the Rochester area.

Those requirements could make construction projects more expensive, say the region's IDA leaders, and could also increase labor costs. Both could put the Rochester area at a competitive disadvantage, they say.

The Legislature has taken up IDA reform bills before. Its members have talked up different proposals, and legislative bills have been shuffled from one committee to another. Or, in some cases, the legislation gets submitted but it goes nowhere.