Jul 31
2024
Rural IDA leader highest paid in New York
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Steven G. Hyde retires effective Aug. 1. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel.
When he steps aside tomorrow, Steven G. Hyde — a Genesee County official — will retire as the highest-paid economic development leader in the public sector in New York.
His $274,898 salary as president and CEO of the Genesee County Economic Development Center was nearly $25,000 more than Gov. Kathy Hochul’s 2023 salary. It was also more than every other industrial development agency leader in the state.
To wit: His counterpart in New York City earned $243,500 in 2023. His counterpart in Erie County made $205,000. His counterparts at the IDAs in the New York City suburbs, including Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, earn under $200,000 according to the most recent data.
Hyde even earned more than the leaders at the Empire State Development Corp., New York’s economic development arm. Leadership there, including President and CEO Hope Knight, earned between $202,000 and $216,000 last year.
What’s more, Hyde received additional bonuses prior to 2013. In 2008 and 2009, for example, he received a $60,000 bonus. In 2012, his bonus totaled $140,000.
With 22 years of service vested in the New York State and Local Retirement System, Hyde, 62, is estimated to earn an annual pension of more than $110,000.
“I’ve not come across an IDA leader in the state with that compensation level,” said Andina Barone, a consultant who works with IDAs and local governments in Western New York. “It’s rather hard to believe considering Genesee County is a smaller county … and considering there isn’t an abundance of tenancy at the STAMP [Science Technology and Advanced Manufacturing Park] site.”
Neither Hyde nor Genesee County IDA board chairman Peter Zeliff returned messages for this story. A spokesperson for the IDA, Earl Wells III, said the IDA’s board felt Hyde deserved his pay.
“The GCEDC Board negotiated these items with Mr. Hyde. The board in each instance voted unanimously to approve his compensation package,” Wells said.
He added: “Given the $2 billion in private sector investment and the thousands of jobs created and thousands more retained under Mr. Hyde’s tenure Genesee County residents, businesses and taxpayers have significantly benefited from the economic impact generated by the GCEDC.”
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Genesee County boasts a population of 58,000. Among IDAs, it ranks as the 33rd largest among 107 in New York State, according to the most recent data from the state comptroller. The leaders of every larger IDA — meaning the agency handled more economic development deals that netted larger total investments for their municipalities — earned less than Hyde.
Hyde’s successor, Vice President of Operations Mark Masse, will take over with a salary of $185,000 on Aug. 1.
Records obtained by Investigative Post show the agency and its board of directors justifying bonuses and raises for Hyde over the past decade in part due to the grants and companies Hyde was luring to his agency’s Science, Technology and Advanced Manufacturing Park. That’s the 1,250-acre industrial park located halfway between Buffalo and Rochester that’s been under development since December 2005. Built to attract companies in the semiconductor industry, STAMP received its first injection of state funding in 2012 and has since received nearly $100 million in public monies.
An analysis of additional public records revealed a pattern: Hyde received big pay bumps in the years immediately following a state grant for the industrial park he was in charge of building.
In 2012, the year STAMP was awarded a $2 million grant, Hyde earned a bonus of $142,000 and extra pay of $9,711. His pay that year totaled $312,388, nearly double his base salary.
After a smack on the wrist in 2011 from the state Authorities Budget Office — which called the bonuses “inappropriate” — the agency ended the practice of awarding the extra pay to Hyde and other leadership.
Hyde’s board of directors include the grants and his work on STAMP in his annual performance evaluations. The agency, however, redacted all details of Hyde’s reviews when turning the records over to Investigative Post in response to a Freedom of Information Law request.
Still, the records indicate Hyde received a positive review in 2012: The following year, 2013, he earned a $34,258 raise and extra pay of $11,695, bringing his paycheck to $205,904. Obtaining state funds to build STAMP remained on Hyde’s list of goals in subsequent years.
His raise in 2014 was smaller: $3,900. But that was the year the Genesee County IDA received a $33 million state grant for STAMP. Hyde subsequently earned an extra $11,227 that year. The following year, his raise was $14,000. His total pay in 2015 was $216,000.
Hyde returned to more modest raises — between $3,500 and $4,500 — in the years between 2016 and 2021. His total pay in 2021 was $238,951.
Then the IDA received another $8 million from Empire State Development for STAMP. Hyde’s pay jumped $11,000 in 2022 and $14,000 in 2023.
Hyde's salary was $263,000 in 2023. In November, Empire State Development awarded the IDA a $56 million grant for STAMP. The following month, Hyde’s board awarded him a 4.5 percent raise.
That made his 2024 pay at least $274,898. It’s not known if he received any extra pay.
Raises for Hyde approved by the IDA board over the years. Obtained via FOIL.
Wells, the IDA spokesperson, said grants for STAMP and Hyde's pay were not related.
"There is no correlation between the grants awarded to STAMP and Mr. Hyde’s compensation package," he said.
The records obtained by Investigative Post show that the IDA’s board of directors felt the agency was operating with a regional focus, and felt that Hyde was working on par with leaders of chambers of commerce, not other public officials. In a 2012 report obtained by Investigative Post, consultants hired by the agency laid out an argument that others in similar positions earned far more than Hyde. The consultants compared Hyde, a public official, to private nonprofit economic development leaders.
“[The IDA] has become a regionally-oriented economic development organization that undertakes similar, albeit different, regional economic development activities with [Invest Buffalo Niagara] and Greater Rochester Enterprise,” the report stated. “[Agency] revenues have consistently exceeded those of [Invest Buffalo Niagara] and Greater Rochester Enterprise over the last several years.”
It went on: “Hyde’s compensation is below that of his counterparts in Western NY. Hyde is not the highest paid economic development CEO in New York.”
The IDA compared Hyde to Thomas Kucharski, head of Invest Buffalo Niagara — a private nonprofit organization that seeks to attract companies to Western New York — and Matt Hurlbutt, head of Greater Rochester Enterprise, a similar organization in Monroe County. Kucharski earned a salary of $310,373 and Hurlbutt earned a salary of $371,294 according to each organizations’ most recent tax filings.
Kucharski declined to comment on Hyde’s pay, saying it was a decision of the IDA board. He explained, however, that IDAs and Invest Buffalo Niagara serve different but “complementary” functions. His group seeks to attract industry to the region while IDAs offer grants, loans and tax breaks to companies to create and retain jobs.
“They don’t do what we do, and we don’t do what they do,” Kucharski said. “We all do different things.”
Barone, who consults for IDAs, said it was “outrageous” that Hyde and the IDA would be compared to organizations like Kucharski’s. Invest Buffalo Niagara and Greater Rochester Enterprise, she said, send site selectors and companies to IDAs in an effort to grow the regional economy while heads of IDAs are focused solely on their own jurisdictions.
“To the best of my knowledge and recollection, Mr. Hyde at no such time served as a regional consultant to any other IDA in Western New York or the Finger Lakes other than Genesee County,” Barone said.
“That's outrageous if anybody frames, thinks, believes or states that he works as a regional partner with the other IDAs when in fact he is a competitor.”
Hurlbutt did not return a call seeking comment for this story.
