Florida's Golisano will keep Sabres, and his hand in politics
ALBANY — B. Thomas Golisano, Florida's newest resident from New York, says he still thinks he can have a role to play influencing politics in the Empire State — while living 1,200 miles away in his Gulf-side condo.
Lamenting the high cost of taxes and spending by New York's governments, even Golisano, who ran for governor three times, sounded like some of the wind of his reform sails has diminished.
Just months after spending several million dollars in last fall's state elections trying, he says, to improve the ways of Albany, the former Rochester billionaire said today he did not know exactly what role he might try to play in next year's elections, which includes the entire Legislature and the governorship.
"I wish there were 100,000 people standing behind me feeling the same way and acting the same way, but they're not," Golisano told reporters at the state Capitol. But, he added, he still feels a sense of responsibility to stay engaged in trying to change the ways of Albany — even if he has moved his legal residence to Naples, Fla.
The only thing he knows for certain, at this point, is he will not be unloading his Buffalo Sabres. When he announced his decision to move last week, Golisano said his business interests in upstate, including the Sabres, would not be affected by his decision.
"Nothing changes," he said today of the Sabres' ownership. Asked if that meant he was going to be the exception to Florida transplants and remain in snowy Western New York during the Sabres' hockey season, Golisano just laughed, and added, "I get to see four games in Florida."
Golisano said this year's state budget — which increased income taxes on upper wage earners from 6.85 percent to 8.97 percent — was the final straw. His moving to Florida will save him $5 million in state income taxes. The billionaire founder of Paychex, a payroll processing company, has already registered to vote and gotten his driver's license in Florida, and signed the homestead exemption paperwork that will cap his annual property tax increases to 3 percent a year there.
"I'm sorry Mr. Golisano feels that he has to change his residence at this time," Gov. David Paterson said today. "I understand the people moving out of this state is one of the reasons we don't want to raise personal income taxes as we did."
Paterson warned legislative leaders that raising the income tax would drive people out, but he bowed to pressure from Democratic leaders in the two houses to implement the tax, which will raise $4 billion a year.
Paterson said he was successful in changing the Legislature's plan to keep the taxes higher for three years, instead of the proposed five years. "So, I'm hoping when it sunsets in three years that Mr. Golisano will come back," he said.
"I'm sorry, that kind of statement doesn't render much confidence in me that it's going to change. They get used to a level of spending and they just can't back off from it," Golisano said of the governor and lawmakers.
Golisano has spent about $100 million in his three gubernatorial runs on the Independence Party line and last year's effort to bring change to Albany by supporting a Democratic takeover of the state Senate. While the Democrats do control the Senate now, Golisano said it has been a failure so far because no one stood up in the Democratic conference to block a budget that he said harms taxpayers during one of the nation's worst recessions.
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