The Times Union reported this morning that the $300 million new subsidy being requested by Global Foundries has been drastically scaled back, and local Sen. Roy McDonald confirmed that when I ran into him this afternoon at Saratoga Spa State Park. He said the chip fab company is seeking five annual grants of $30 million starting next year for a total of $150 million. While the company wants the state OK now, there would be no new cost in the budget year starting April 1 -- i.e. the budget currently being negotiated. In return for the new subsidy, the already heavily subsidized company would expand the large plant currently under construction in the Saratoga County town of Malta by 90,000 square feet, and add an undetermined number of new jobs. McDonald said he strongly supports the request.
The senator was attending the annual meeting of Friends of Grant Cottage, as was Robert Kuhn, a senior official with the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Despite the unprecedented budget pressure on the Parks Office, Kuhn said money would be found for a much needed repainting of the cottage on Mount McGregor where Ulysses S. Grant died in 1885 after completing his memoirs. The Parks Office also aims to solve the drainage/flooding problem in the cottage's visitor center, Kuhn said. Grant Cottage is operated by the Friends, not the Parks Office, and although the state tried to shut it down in the 1980s, it was not one of the sites targeted in this year's executive budget, which called for closure of many parks and historic buildings run by the Parks Office. The Legislature has not gone along with these cuts.
Recent donations to the Friends, it was announced at the meeting, include $10,000 from Fox News President Roger Ailes.
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