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New York local governments, including New York City, share the cost of social services and Medicaid, which elsewhere are borne mainly at the state level.  Nonetheless, New York's state government spends considerably more than the national average, a Read More

New York is running out of cash, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli today.  The situation would be worse if Governor Paterson had not , prompting the New York State United Teachers union to file a against him. But don't worry-- will soon be bailing us Read More

In 2000, state and local governments collectively owed $1.5 trillion (adjusted for inflation to 2009 dollars). Today, they owe $2.3 trillion, a 53 percent increase. Over the same time period, American consumers and homeowners hiked their own debt Read More

is this week's most-hated transit provider, leaving 100,000 passengers stranded in London, Paris, or somewhere in between because mucked up the high-speed trains that carry people in the undersea tunnel between Britain and France. Read More

Are New York's public authorities fixed? Little more than a week ago, Gov. Paterson signed a bill to ." But State Senator Bill Perkins of Harlem thinks that the convolutions New York's Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) put itself through t Read More

The NYT hosted an online on how to fix the MTA today. Here are some deeper #s: In 2004, MTA labor spending was $5 billion. Today, it's nearly $7 billion. (Look for yourself and .) If it had kept up with inflation between '04 and '09, it Read More

Mayor Bloomberg, enlightenedly governing from Copenhagen via the World Wide Web this week, had the following to say about the dim-bulb, smaller-carbon-footprinted folks back home to CNBC:  "I don't think that congestion pricing and thos Read More

A court decision upholding a three-year, 11.5 percent pay raise for New York City transit workers should make local governments elsewhere nervous. State Supreme Court Justice O. Peter Sherwood has upheld an arbitration panel award to the Transport Read More

The U.K.'s Labour Party surprised the world and maybe itself by taking a tough line on City bank bonuses on Wednesday, according to the press, announcing a 50 percent surtax on banks' bonus payrolls through next April. The tax, which the banks the Read More

The price tag for the Legislature's promise of an early retirement incentive for teachers isn't publicly known, but a similar bill would cost school districts $200 million in added pension payments next year. Read More

The state bailed out the MTA with a $1.5 billion payroll tax earlier this year. But it turns out revenues from the payroll tax will come in $200 million less than expected. If only the state and the MTA had had someone back then to tell them that th Read More

Pay raises for teachers in eight Long Island school districts are growing at a slower rate than in the past, but still exceed percentage increases granted to private sector employees. Meanwhile, teachers in at least 18 Long Island districts are wo Read More