IDA BONDS: THE ABUSE GOES ON.(Main)(Editorial)

There may be limits to the creative ends to which Industrial Development Agency bonds can be put, but so far no one seems to have found them.

The latest, and perhaps most ingenious, use of IDA bonds might have been stumbled upon by Wegman food stores in Monroe County (the Rochester area), if charges against that company turn out to be true.

Testimony before the Assembly and Senate Joint Committee on Local Government alleged that the food store chain essentially borrowed money from itself through a public body, namely the IDA, in order to get a tax break. It supposedly oworked this way: Since 1987 Wegman's used more than $14 million in IDA money to finance …