Silver Unveils Victim Assistance, Economic Recovery Package
(11/5/01)

The proposal includes immediate and long-term initiatives to assist in the task of rebuilding lower Manhattan’s economy.

“Through this comprehensive set of proposals, we are seeking to establish an appropriate memorial for those who lost their lives in the attack, provide assistance to their families and create a variety of tools to help rebuild the city’s economy and reclaim its rightful place as both financial capital of the world and center of arts, culture and entertainment to people everywhere,” Silver said.

Highlights of the $200 million, multiyear package include: providing financial assistance for families of victims; establishing a memorial commission to commemorate those who died in the attack and honor those offering assistance in its wake; a Lower Manhattan Resurgence Authority to plan, coordinate and finance efforts to rebuild the affected area; and significant tax incentives to promote business stability and growth in lower Manhattan.

In an effort to ease the financial burden on the families of those who were killed in the attacks or died trying to save others, the Assembly seeks to provide remedies to the immediate problems they face and assistance in meeting the their future needs, Silver added.

Under the Assembly’s package, family members of deceased police officers, firefighters and other public employees would continue to receive their salaries for an as-yet undetermined amount of time. The package also would extend their health insurance benefits and create a supplemental, one-time death benefit for surviving beneficiaries of all deceased public employees. For those public employees who were severely injured and will have to retire as a result of the attack, the package would create an enhanced disability pension amounting to three-fourths of their salary.

In additional, all families of those killed in the attacks would be eligible for education memorial awards to be used toward tuition, fees and room and board at public and private colleges in the state.

To provide continuity in insurance coverage, the proposals would establish a program aimed at continuing health coverage both for those who lost their jobs as a result of the attack and for survivors of those who died as a result of this tragedy.

New York State’s unemployment insurance program would also be enhanced for workers affected by the attack by waiving the four-day waiting period to receive benefits. In addition, it would waive the waiting period for claimants who lost jobs in the airline, restaurant, and hotel or tourism industries. It would also allow employees who were not working but were still injured in the attack to receive weekly disability benefit payments.

The package also:

• extends the due date for real property tax payments to January 2, 2002 for victims’ families, relief workers and property owners in the disaster area.
• makes individuals who perished in the disaster eligible for a 2000 and 2001 state income tax exemption;
• expands the New York state’s School Tax Relief Program (STAR) exemption on real property taxes and the New York City personal income tax STAR credit for rescue workers;
• creates a partial property-tax exemption, at local option, to provide county, city, town and village tax relief for victims of the attacks;
• provides a new tax credit to any individual displaced because of the attack equal to the total cost of the hotel room an individual occupied.
• provides grants and low-cost loans to businesses adversely affected by the disaster in temporarily relocating within New York City;
• provides grants and low-cost loans to businesses that suffered limited, nonstructural damage but are in need of renovation in order to continue their operations;
• provides worker-training grants to companies forced to hire new employees to replace those lost in the disaster.

The plan also would establish the Liberty and Resurgence Zones with modified Empire Zone benefits for up to 10 years, a relocation tax credit to any business located in Ground Zero that that relocate and train its employees within New York City, and low-cost electricity to businesses in lower Manhattan or temporarily dislocated as a result of the World Trade Center disaster.