We didn’t need a state agency’s report to be able to judge Start-Up NY’s impact on Chautauqua County.

The much-ballyhooed and talked about economic development program has had as much impact on Chautauqua County as NASA’s probe of Jupiter. That is to say, of course, there has been no local impact. In two years, Start-Up NY has attracted some nibbles from businesses interested in using the tax-free zones in Chautauqua County. None have been able to leverage the maze of paperwork and approvals needed to get their project off the ground.

It came as no shock to us to see a report – dumped on a state website where no one would see it late in the run-up to the Fourth of July weekend – showing Start-Up NY has generated 408 new jobs spread among 159 employers across the state. To be fair, job creation credited to Start-Up NY in 2015 was four times what it was in 2014. Still, 408 new jobs should be considered paltry at best for a state with rural regions crying desperately for new jobs and new investment. Jamestown, with its low-cost power from the Board of Public Utilities, should have been the poster child for the benefits of Start-Up NY. Instead, it is the poster child for the program’s impotency.

Our local representatives in the state Legislature have long been on the record about the shortcomings of Start-Up NY. We hope this report, if state legislators from other counties have actually taken the time to read it, provides Assemblyman Andrew Goodell, R-Jamestown, and state Sen. Catharine Young, R-Olean, with the ammunition they need to either make the changes necessary to make Start-Up NY useful to counties like ours or to throw it on the scrap heap. Either option would be an improvement.