Adding a fresh chapter to the seemingly never-ending saga of government excess and regulatory insanity, New York’s state Labor Department reportedly will use federal emergency funds to pay $51.71 an hour to temporary workers hired to clean up Poughkeepsie’s Fallkill Creek Read More
Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg (D-Long Beach) has just introduced a bill (A.10676) that would exclude court-ordered tax certiorari refund payments from Nassau County school district tax levy limits under the state’s property tax cap. It’s the same measure introduced in the Senate a month ago by Sen. Jack Martins (R-Mineola). Read More
Governor Andrew Cuomo is urging youth to sign up for available jobs, basically hanging out a "help wanted" sign for the state's NY Youth Works and Summer Youth Programs. Read More
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
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