| According to data analyzed by Reinvent Albany, the Rockland County Industrial Development Agency (IDA) and New York Power Authority (NYPA) committed at least $321 million in sales tax exemptions and power subsidies to five data center sites in Rockland County since 2013. In return for these generous handouts of taxpayer funds, the corporations building the data centers — which are among the world’s wealthiest and include Wall Street giants like JP Morgan — will create or keep the equivalent of 298 full-time equivalent jobs.Data centers in Rockland County are getting two major subsidies from NY taxpayers: exemptions from state and local sales taxes and ultra-low cost power from NYPA. The Rockland County IDA has exempted data center purchases worth about $2.9 billion from $239 million in sales taxes, including $114 million due to New York State, $114 million due to Rockland County, plus $10.7 million for the MTA. IDAs can abate the 4% state, 4.o% Rockland County and .375% MTA sales taxes. Chart 1 – Total NYPA and Sales Tax Subsidies Per Data Center Site: |
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| NY Taxpayers Paying $1.078M Per Rockland Data Center Full-Time Job Data centers are automated, employ by far the fewest people of any type of industry, consume enormous amounts of electricity and water, and get the biggest taxpayer handout per full-time job. The $1.078 million in state and local subsidies per Rockland data center job is 34 times higher than the $32,000 per job average of the 249 major subsidy deals announced by New York State from 2014 to 2018. Chart 2 – Total NYPA and Sales Tax Subsidy Per FTE Job: |
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| NYPA Is Giving a Power Subsidy Worth at Least $82M to Rockland’s Data Centers – by Charging Them One-Nineteenth What NY Households Pay Astoundingly, the average NY household is paying about nineteen times more for electricity than most data centers in Rockland County. According to data from NY State’s energy agency, NYSERDA, residential customers paid $244 per megawatt-hour (MWh), and NYPA preferred power customers – including Rockland data centers – $12.88 per MWh. Chart 3 – NYPA Subsidy Per FTE Job Per Year: |
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| Gov Hochul Should End Sales Tax Abatements for Data Centers Reinvent Albany supports Governor Hochul’s commitment to passing legislation next session to end sales tax abatements for data centers. We believe government funds could be more effectively used on other forms of economic development that benefit communities more broadly, like this $250 million for water projects in local communities across the State. Taxpayer Subsidies for Data Centers Going to Wealthy Corporations Chart 1 above shows 5 data center locations encompassing 11 data centers that Rockland County has committed to giving $321 million in subsidies to. JP Morgan Chase received the most subsidies, with $112.22 million in sales tax abatement commitments from the Rockland County IDA for two data center projects in the Hamlet of Orangeburg, in addition to a Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT), which lowers its property taxes. To date, JP Morgan has claimed $36.4 million of those sales tax exemptions and received a reduction of $1.52 million in its property taxes. Reinvent Albany previously revealed that the Wall Street giant received $76.7 million in sales tax exemption commitments for its data center expansion (JP Morgan Datacenter II) for a commitment to create just one job. The company, worth nearly a trillion dollars, has not yet created the job, according to the latest project data reported to the Authorities Budget Office (ABO), but the Datacenter II project has generated 196 temporary construction jobs. The project’s term runs to 2044.While Rockland County awarded $236 million in sales tax subsidies, only 3.75% of the 8.375% sales tax levy impacts the County’s budget, with .25% hitting towns and villages within Rockland plus revenue from the 4% State and .375% Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) sales tax. This still means that 45% of the subsidies awarded take away from future revenues the county would have received, or $89 million, while Rockland’s annual budget was just $914 million for fiscal year 2026. Sales Tax Exemption and NYPA Subsidies Per Full-Time Job While receiving commitments for $321 million in sales tax exemptions and NYPA low-cost electricity subsidies, the projects collectively were only scheduled to create or retain 137 full-time jobs. To date, that paltry number has been exceeded with 297.5 full-time equivalents (FTEs) claimed or committed to. Even using the higher number of projected or actual FTEs, companies still received a stunning $1.078 million in subsidies per full-time job, as shown in Chart 2 above.The projects were also projected to generate 380 temporary construction jobs, but have claimed to generate 666 construction jobs. For Chart 2 above, Reinvent Albany totaled 1,046 construction jobs, assuming that when companies said they would create a certain number of construction jobs but reported zero, the promised number of construction jobs was met.JP Morgan Chase’s Datacenter II has by far the greatest subsidy per FTE ever, of $76.7 million for a single job. Across both its projects, it was given $112.22 million for 35 FTEs, at $3.21 million per FTE job. JP Morgan’s projects did result in 630 construction jobs. Each data center site’s jobs and cost per FTE are indicated on Chart 2 above, in addition to temporary construction jobs, which are not included in the subsidy per FTE. Total NYPA Low-Cost Electricity Subsidies and Annual Benefits Per Full-Time Job While much attention has focused on sales tax subsidies committed to data centers, with Governor Hochul pledging to eliminate them in legislation next session, data centers, along with other companies, also receive enormous subsidies for low-cost electricity from the New York Power Authority through several different programs, including ReChargeNY. This is alarming because one of the major concerns about data centers is that they strain the grid and raise the prices of other ratepayers. Data centers are receiving electricity subsidies that Reinvent Albany calculates are one-sixth that of other customers in 2025. $75 MWh was the average industrial electricity cost in 2025 in New York State compared to the subsidized corporate customer rate of $12.88 MWh, meaning data centers received a subsidy of $62.12 per MWh on average in 2025 alone. As shown on Chart 1 above, Bloomberg received by far the most NYPA subsidies compared to any other data center in Rockland County. While NYPA does not make available actual electricity used by companies even if a freedom of information request is made, allocations pending or signed into contract are available for current recipients. With that data, Reinvent Albany determined a maximum of 8 MWh per day in NYPA RechargeNY electricity was allocated to Bloomberg in contracts or pending contracts from 2018-2030, and rising to a maximum electricity usage of 11.39 MWh per day between 2021 and 2024. Using the subsidized amount for 2025 for all years subsidized power was received results in Bloomberg receiving $68 million in low-cost electricity subsidies. That figure could be higher or lower depending on the average electricity rates in years other than 2025. Chart 3 above shows the annual subsidy received by each data center site in Rockland County per FTE job created. The DataBank site, while having a lower total electricity subsidy than Bloomberg, had a higher annual subsidy per full-time job due to having far fewer full-time jobs pledged at the time of their application to NYPA for low-cost electricity. The job numbers used by NYPA are the jobs pledged to be created or retained at the time of the application, and for Rockland County, are the same jobs the data center is also already receiving sales tax exemptions for creating or retaining. Thus, benefits are counted twice for the same jobs. Reinvent Albany worked with Senator May’s office on S9182/A10852 (Kelles), which is the only bill in the legislature we are aware of that would ban NYPA low-cost electricity subsidies to data centers. We believe the Governor should, in addition to cutting sales tax subsidies for data centers, also cut subsidized low-cost electricity to data centers. This is consistent with her belief that data centers should pay their own way and not burden other ratepayers. |