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It's official: after a decade in which the New York State pension fund's annual return on assets averaged less than half its target rate, the fund will need to jack up its taxpayer-funded contribution rates next year, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli announced today. Read More

Don't look now, but the feds are dropping more cash from helicopters -- and the Empire State is already grabbing a big handful. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius announced yesterday that 2,000 employers throughout the country had applied for a piece... Read More

In 2008, Barrett was paid a total of $1,500 to speak at two separate events in West Virginia, the money coming from federal grants. He was paid a total of $2,850 by the Schenectady school system for four appearances, while also collecting... Read More

Last month, the state-run MTA said that it might raise the price of a 30-day subway and bus pass from today's $89 to $104 -- a pretty hefty 17 percent increase. That's still the case in the MTA's latest on-line literature about fare hearings, too. Read More

New York's state comptroller reportedly is going to reduce the state pension fund's discount rate from 8 percent to between 7.5 percent and 7.75 percent, Bloomberg News just reported. The lower the discount rate, the higher the required tax-funded... Read More

New York's state budget gap for 2011-12 -- the first year of the next gubernatorial administration -- is now projected at nearly $8.2 billion, according to the 2010-11 Enacted Budget Report released today by Governor Paterson's Division of the Budget (DOB). Read More

It's not clear whether the Japanese scandal was caused by pension fraud, faulty government bookkeeping or "disintegrating family ties," reports the New York Times. Read More

InvestmentNews says that more residents of high-tax states, mindful of looming federal tax hikes as well as higher state taxes, are moving south. As Ernst & Young tax partner Greg Rosica tells author Hilary Johnson: We haven't had a situation like... Read More

The Financial Times reports today (log-in required) that Wall Street banks "are bracing for a slump in trading profits." As we said a few weeks ago, second-quarter profits for banks like Goldman weren't great. July wasn't much better, even slower than... Read More

Just when it looked like New York's free-spending public schools were finally about to meaningfully tighten their belts, news came from Washington yesterday that the U.S. Senate had cleared the way for another $26 billion dose of "stimulus"... Read More

Noting a reported increase in wealthy households in the New York City metropolitan area, Robert Frank of the Wall Street Journal is mystified that "New York still has huge budget problems given the wealth surge in 2009 and much-publicized tax burden... Read More

As expected, Governor Paterson has sent the state Legislature yet another version of his proposal to cap local property taxes. Replicating the language he submitted as part of the 2010-11 Executive Budget, the governor's latest program bill also hews... Read More