The doubts crept in, just a year into the life of the tax-break program known as Start-Up New York, with revelations that New York State had spent nearly $50 million to promote a job-creation initiative that in its first year had created all of 76 jobs.
They grew into heavy skepticism last summer, when the state quietly acknowledged in a footnote to a long-delayed report that Start-Up — once the darling of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who promised it would “supercharge” economic development — had produced just 408 jobs in its first two years, even as its marketing price tag rose past $53 million.
