Special banks can help LI rebuild

Marty Glennon is a partner with the Long Island labor law firm, Archer, Byington, Glennon & Levine, located in Melville.

We need to find more ways to put more people to work. Depending on the studies you read, somewhere between 30 percent and 40 percent of the country's wealth is concentrated in the top 1 percent of our population. Despite their best efforts, this 1 percent cannot purchase enough goods and services to stimulate the economy out of its doldrums. If more people are working, however, more people will be spending.

Two of the things Long Island needs most are jobs and infrastructure repairs. New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli issued a report late last year on the state's failing infrastructure, noting that New York has spent more than $63 billion on capital projects in the past 10 years and plans to spend an additional $47 billion over the next five. But how will we pay for those infrastructure needs?

California can provide a model. In 1994, its legislature voted to create a statewide infrastructure bank, which is responsible for funding projects in the state.

The California I-Bank's Infrastructure State Revolving Fund was started in the early 2000s with $161 million in seed money from the state's capital budget. Since then, it has provided low-cost financing to local governments and authorities for a wide variety of infrastructure needs, funding nearly $31 billion in projects so far. The I-Bank is currently seeking ways to encourage public-private partnerships for infrastructure as well.

There's been talk on both the national and state levels about infrastructure banks, but the oversight and governance of such banks would probably be in Washington and Albany. This would be only too likely to just feed the lobbyists and channel money to projects favored by politicians and "pay to play" developers. Before you knew it, we'd have more bridges to nowhere.

The answer is regional infrastructure banks. The building trades unions on Long Island have had pension funds for decades. These funds are invested in stocks, bonds and other investment vehicles that rise and fall on the whims of Wall Street. But what if a small portion of this money were invested in local infrastructure, allowing government to put up only half of what it would have otherwise needed to pay for these projects?

By establishing a public-private partnership and creating a local infrastructure bank, the trade unions here could secure work for their members while simultaneously addressing some of Long Island's most pressing needs. In addition, taxpayers would be spared the full burden otherwise associated with infrastructure repairs. This would provide a model for other regional trades unions to partner with government in other areas throughout the state.

If Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is serious about ending politics as usual and addressing our infrastructure needs, he should consider supporting several regional I-banks throughout the state. This would eliminate centralized control of the money and reduce pork-barrel politics. Cuomo has stressed the need for regional councils - why not regional I-banks? The investment for New York would be a portion of what it would cost to create a single statewide bank. More important, a decentralized approach would help take control away from Albany politics.

Once infrastructure banks are created, they could continue into perpetuity. Unions have a vested interest in putting their members to work, and the more work they perform on infrastructure, the more money will be paid into their benefit funds. These are decent-paying jobs that will increase the purchasing power of the Long Island workforce, leading to greater tax revenues for local, state and federal governments.

In short, it would help us make real strides toward a full economic recovery - while easing government's infrastructure burden.