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Buried in is an incredible set of special concessions to unionized school teachers in New York.  None of these changes were contained in Governor Paterson's original "pension reform" proposal, .  The worst of the giveaways to teachers in the final Read More

Moody's has come out with its rating of $500 million worth of senior revenue bonds for the $1.06 billion arena portion of the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. The rating for the arena, called the Barclays Center, is Baa3, the lowest Read More

What does a tiny Arab emirate have in common with the NBA's worst team, which currently plays in New Jersey?  And why should the answer matter to a taxpayer in Buffalo or Syracuse?  Nicole in today's New York Post. Read More

 Is Governor David Paterson ready to consider a wage freeze? Based on what he told reporters Sunday, the answer may be yes. The governor was asked to comment on the idea as presented in an op-ed by John Faso, the 2006 gubernatorial candi Read More

"[Dubai] will not ... be able to restore confidence in its solvency without support from Abu Dhabi, its oil-rich investor, neighbour and the more conservative senior partner in the United Arab Emirates. ... Abu Dhabi should give whatever help is nee Read More

Fresh from a key court victory, Albany's Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), via its subsidiary, the Brooklyn Arena Local Development Corporation (BALDC), yesterday approved the issuance of up to $800 million in bonds for the construction o Read More

Governor Paterson today that New York State faces "an unprecedented financial emergency," and asked the Legislature to choose between passing his deficit-reduction plan or granting him a new "executive option" to cut the budget unilaterally.  But t Read More

Josh Barro of Manhattan Institute has a strong at RealClearMarkets digging more deeply into the Rockefeller Institute's on quarterly state tax collections.  Key take-away: "states without income taxes are generally showing admirable (and unsurpris Read More

City of Poughkeepsie cops aren't getting a pay raise in 2009--a decision likely to raise local property taxes for decades to come. In exchange for no raises in 2009, the city agreed to pay 100 percent of health insurance costs for police officers Read More

On the surface, New York doesn't look too bad in Rockefeller Institute's on tax trends in the 50 states.  Albany's tax receipts in the third quarter declined by 8.9 percent, compared to a national average of 10.7 percent, the report says.  New York Read More

It like Chicago's parking-privatization deal was a bad deal for the city and a good deal for Morgan Stanley, the concessionaire. Under the 2008 deal, Morgan Stanley bought the rights to the city's parking-meter revenue for 75 years -- including the Read More

"If there is no action taken by the state [of New York] to close the [budget] gap, or if action is taken but is largely-one-time in nature (therefore increasing the structural imbalance in the outyears), and revenue collections in January are close t Read More