ALBANY— The Business Council will kick off the New Year with its 2013 Legislators' Reception on Tuesday evening, January 22, 2013, at the Hotel Albany (formerly the Crowne Plaza Albany). This is the premier networking event for our members and the biggest of its kind in Albany. It represents a great opportunity for New York's business leaders to interact with state legislators and government officials, to discuss key public policy issues for 2013.
Attendees will have an opportunity to meet with members of the Business Council Board of Directors, Business Council members from around the state, as well as government leaders.
The theme of the reception will be "Made in New York." We will be highlighting New York's businesses and the many products and services they make and provide, and talking about how state policies affect the private sector economy. This is just one of the many ways we are working to increase awareness of the great companies that are the backbone of New York's economy.
Heather Briccetti, president and CEO of The Business Council, will speak to the expected 800+ attendees regarding the organization's advocacy agenda for 2013. She will introduce the audience to a media presentation on the important part manufacturing plays in the state's economy and outline some of the 2013 legislative priorities for the Business Council including:
- Supporting a budget with no new taxes, fees and assessments
- Imposing limits on new spending growth, and adopting additional fiscal reforms;
- Reducing workers' compensation costs for business and fixing the Unemployment Insurance system;
- Reforming the state's SEQRA, permitting and other programs to provide predictable, workable time frames for the approval of new investment projects;
- Adopting broad reforms in the state's business taxes to reduce compliance costs and make the state's tax code more supportive of in-state investment and job creation;
- Reforming the state's rigorous, expensive regulatory climate to eliminate unnecessary and inefficient compliance mandates;
- Instituting mandate relief for localities to allow them to manage their own spending levels under the real property tax cap;
- Finalizing regulations to allow the safe and timely development of the Marcellus Shale;
- Opposing new group health coverage mandates, which drive up employer and employee costs and make group help plans increasingly unaffordable; and
- Reducing lawsuit costs, including adoption of long-needed reforms to the state's so-called scaffolding law, and rejecting expansion of the state's "Martin Act."
We made great strides in 2012 by working together to improve the business climate in New York, and by promoting private sector investment and job creation.
The Business Council looks forward to partnering with Governor Cuomo, the Senate and Assembly and, most importantly, our members, for an even more successful – and job filled – 2013.