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The image on the cover of New York State's is obviously meant to convey the sense that there's not only a light visible at the end of the budgetary tunnel, we're just about to emerge into broad daylight. But the report itself, released late yesterday Read More

Over the years, despite chronic complaints about their property taxes, Nassau County residents have shown a remarkable tolerance for high levels of local government spending -- which helps explain why their county finances are in such poor shape. Yes Read More

Governor Andrew Cuomo has been stumping the state to announce to implement the state's latest grand, government-driven strategy for creating jobs and economic growth.  Business groups around the state are treating it like a big deal, and the news m Read More

When New York State's first-quarter tax receipts came in nearly $800 million above the 2011-12 financial plan forecast last week, I that the anemic 1 percent year-to-year quarterly growth in personal income tax (PIT) withholding payments was "ground Read More

And speaking of debt: in its latest on the newly adopted New York City budget, the state Financial Control Board says the city's unfunded liability for "other post-employment benefits" (OPEB) could approach $100 billion in three years. As shown in th Read More

Compensation and employment trends in the private and public sectors diverged during the Great Recession. And while there has been belated retrenchment in government, the indicate the private sector still has a lot of catching up to do in New York S Read More

As if it wasn't bad enough that New York imposes , the Empire State's patchwork system of local property tax administration is rated the nation's worst in a new scorecard compiled by a corporate-sponsored tax organization. The assigned New York a Read More

The Daily News's Monday-morning MTA columnist Pete Donohue up the Jay Walder tenure: Mayor Bloomberg, Gov. Cuomo and others are right to commend Walder for keeping the MTA afloat during a fiscal crisis and pushing forward on Read More

Governor Andrew Cuomo's tentative contact deals with state labor unions will require current employees to contribute more to their health insurance coverage. But Cuomo won't seek an equivalent increase in health insurance premiums for retir Read More

Usually, people don't notice infrastructure until something's wrong with it, as with New York's . So, let's hand it to Con Ed for what we don't notice: even as New York's temperatures hit records on a weekday, the lights are still on. Good job! Read More

John Murphy, director of the New York City Employee Retirement System (NYCERS) from 1990 to 2005, says disclosure of pension recipients has been routine in the past and is essential to guard against misuse of taxpayer money in the future.  Reacting Read More

Just a month after City Comptroller John Liu boasted that the nation's largest municipal pension fund would "provide the public with unprecedented access to information concerning the pension system" and thus rank "among the nationwide leaders in tra Read More