Blog

A small school district in Westchester County is examining whether it can afford to educate 17 children of its employees who reside outside the district. Like many school districts in New York, the North Salem Central School District allows its nonresident... Read More

Governor Paterson has dropped a proposal to impose New York State's personal income tax on the interest income of non-resident hedge fund managers from his latest preferred list of revenue-raisers to help pay for the 2010-11 budget appropriations... Read More

Retired police officers who hope to collect a pension while working as a local police chief are facing new obstacles to double dipping. A 2008 state law has imposed a more stringent review process before any state retiree is granted a waiver allowing him... Read More

Baruch's E.S. Savas has a good piece in today's Post on introducing competitive contracting to the New York City and downstate public-bus system. As the MTA cuts routes, the state, the MTA, the city, or some combination thereof should bundle the... Read More

Discovering that government employees work extra overtime to spike their pensions is akin to learning there's gambling in Casablanca. Read More

Last week, FW wrote about sinking investment-side bank profits and their implications for New York tax revenues. Today comes another hint of bad news: as the Journal reports today (page B1), luxury retail sales have been falling again, down 3.9 percent.. Read More

In today's New York Times piece on how Con Ed has worked to keep the lights on, Queens Assemblyman Michael N. Gianaris said of the New York City electricity provider that "the company had still not pumped enough money into modernizing its infrastructure." Read More

While many private-sector employees might hope for two weeks notice before being laid off, state workers would get two months notice under a bill passed by the state Senate and on the third reading in the Assembly. (Update below.) Currently, state workers get... Read More

As the Wall Street Journal reports in its quarterly review today (subscription required), investment and universal banks' securities underwriting activity over the past three months has fallen to levels not seen since the last few months of 2008. Read More

School superintendents don't get overtime, but that didn't prevent former Niagara Falls School Superintendent Carmen A. Granto Jr. from collecting a pension larger than his salary. He did so by cashing in 45 unused vacation days and 747 unused sick days... Read More

Governor David Paterson and the Democratic leaders of the New York State Legislature have agreed to impose $50 million in new taxes on non-resident partners in New York-based hedge funds. Here's how the provision is described in the memo accompanying... Read More

New York State once again topped all states in K-12 education spending in 2007-08, according to U.S. Census data released today. The Empire State's school spending of $17,173 per pupil was 67 percent above the national average of $10,259. Read More