Governor Andrew Cuomo is betting the house on Medicaid managed care ringing up estimated savings of $34 billion, to be split between New York and the federal government over the next five years. Read More
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Publicly traded financial firms put out a lot of reports, and they're long. But you don't get to learn what really happens inside such companies until something's gone wrong. Read More
Reversing decades of precedent, all but one of the state's public pension funds are now refusing to release the names of hundreds of thousands of retired employees who collect billions of dollars a year in taxpayer-guaranteed pensions. Read More
The enactment of New York’s local property tax cap has touched off a valuable ongoing debate on the role of state mandates in pushing up county, municipal and school costs. However, while local officials can make a compelling case for repeal of mandates like the Triborough amendment, they shouldn’t be let off the hook when it comes to self-inflicted wounds. Read More
Gov. Andrew Cuomo hasn't yet settled (or announced) a financing plan for the Tappan Zee Bridge reconstruction project. But Europe's recent experience highlights the perils of relying solely (or significantly) on ever-higher tolls. In Continental E Read More
The weekly City and State opens its feature on the minimum wage issue with a portrait of Michelle Dawkins, who rises at 2:30 a.m. to earn $7.25 an hour ferrying wheelchair-bound passengers among the terminals at JFK airport. Assuming she is able to work 40 hours a week without a sick day, Dawkins “will make $15,080 over the course of a year,” the article says. Read More
Public pension funds in New York and across the country are continuing to rely on overly optimistic assumptions about their future investment gains, as detailed in a major New York Times story yesterday. Read More
New York State’s biggest public pension fund underperformed last year, returning 154 basis points less than the 7.5 percent return assumed in its actuarial calculations, which in turn ultimately drive taxpayer-funded pension contributions. Read More
The New York State and Local Retirement System (NYSLRS) closed its most recent fiscal year with a return of just 5.96 percent — well below the 7.5 percent target rate used to discount its long-term liabilities. Read More
The New York Times has agreed to print a correction of this article about the minimum wage issue, which includes inaccurate information implicitly attributed to Empire Center senior fellow Russell Sykes. Read More
A big wheel at Deutsche Bank, chief risk officer and board member Hugo Bänziger, has some portentous thoughts about banking (and therefore, about New York City and State finances) in today's FT. Read More
For years now, the Senate GOP’s approach to economic growth has been to cook up big pot of targeted tax relief, and then fling the whole one-house package onto the agenda for passage so incumbents can campaign on it. Job creation? We’ve got it covered! Read More