Blog

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s energy agency issued a stern correction to an October 24 blog post in this space that said subsidies for offshore wind developers could cost ratepayers more than $6 billion. NYSERDA, the state Energy Research and Development Authority, said my calculations (which were based on NYSERDA’s own data) were “incorrect and misleading.” So I went back and double-checked. In one respect, I did make a mistake, explained below—but not in reaching the $6 billion estimate. In fact, the final price tag could climb even higher. Read More

Governor Cuomo has kept his perfect record of consistently ignoring the statutory deadline for issuing a mid-year financial plan update. Read More

The board of the New York State Teacher Retirement System this week voted to reduce the pension plan's assumed rate of return on investments from 7.25 percent to 7.10 percent, which is (a) a step in the right direction, and (b) still unrealistically high. The new projected return assumption, used as the discount rate for calculating and funding long-term teacher pension liabilities, matches NYSTRS' actual return on investments during the fiscal year ended June 30, which fell 0.15 percent short of the previous target. Read More

A Cuomo administration analysis of its own Medicaid rate hike last fall appeared to show a disproportionate benefit for hospitals associated with the politically influential labor union 1199SEIU. Read More

The long-term cost of subsidies for New York’s new offshore wind turbine projects could exceed $6 billion—or three times the amount acknowledged by Governor Andrew Cuomo’s energy agency. Read More

Upstate electricity customers could shell out more than $1 billion to cover the state’s initial round of subsidies for offshore wind turbines, the Cuomo administration’s energy agency has now revealed. Read More

In cutting the figurative ribbon on a big Capital Region highway project, Governor Andrew Cuomo made a convincing argument against his own policy of steering state work to building trade unions. Read More

At the midway point of the fiscal year, New York's Medicaid health plan has already spent 61 percent of its state-funded budget, according to the latest cash report from the comptroller's office – putting the program on track to end the year with a $2.9 billion shortfall. Read More

The raw politics behind giveaways to building trade unions were on display last week in Troy, a city outside Albany. Read More

The billions of dollars funneled from New York's treasury to movie and TV producers had no statistically significant impact on the industry's employment in the Empire State through 2017, according to a new multi-state study of such tax incentives. Read More

Federal officials are reviewing the state's expropriation of $2 billion from the sale of Fidelis Care health plan, potentially throwing a wrench into the Cuomo administration's plans for using the money. Read More

In what could rank among the least surprising federal court rulings of this or any year, a U.S. District Court judge in Manhattan has rejected New York's constitutional challenge to the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap in the new federal tax law. Read More