The New York City Council's vote of support on Tuesday for a statewide single-payer health plan showed curious timing from a fiscal point of view. Two weeks before, sponsors of the New York Health Act told union officials that they were changing the bill in ways that could cost the city billions of dollars per year. Details of these high-stakes changes won't be available until next month, yet Council members chose to back the measure anyway – effectively endorsing a blank check. Read More
Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday again vetoed a pair of union-backed bills designed to sweeten pensions and discourage use of private contractors by state agencies—a positive signal for his third term. Read More
New York State's public education establishment has issued its annual state budget recommendations — unmoored from fiscal reality, as usual. Read More
A recommended 64 percent pay increase for New York’s state legislators would give lawmakers the highest inflation-adjusted salary in the nation and in state history. Read More
The stock market's slump—and the economic uncertainty it reflects—should raise a yellow caution flag over New York State's budget outlook. Read More
The already extraordinary cost of a proposed state-run single-payer health plan jumped even higher this week when the chief sponsor, Assembly Health Chairman Richard Gottfried of Manhattan, announced that it would be expanded to cover long-term care. Read More
The fate of two government union-backed bills now awaiting Governor Andrew Cuomo’s signature will give an indication of how the governor will tackle major fiscal issues in his third term. Read More
In approving the $69 billion merger of CVS and Aetna, the state Department of Financial Services attached a noteworthy condition: The two companies must forward $40 million to the state of New York. It was the second time this year that the Cuomo administration has leveraged its regulatory authority over a health insurance company to extract a large sum of cash. Read More
New York’s statewide teachers union is collecting cash from about 6,000 fewer people than it was before the Supreme Court ruling that ended compulsory union fees for public employees. Read More
The latest too-good-to-be-true argument for single-payer comes from Albany City Treasurer Darius Shahinfar, who claims that a government-funded statewide health plan would dramatically reduce property taxes. In reality, the savings for local taxpayers, if any, would likely be a fraction of what Shahinfar estimates. And they would come at the cost of the largest increase in state taxes that New York has ever seen, not to mention wholesale disruption of the entire health-care system. Read More
Industry lawsuits filed against Governor Cuomo's $100 million opioid tax, summarized in today's Wall Street Journal, are raising fresh questions about the levy's fairness and unintended side effects. Read More
New York State's budget outlook for fiscal 2020 is improving, according to the Mid-Year Financial Plan update issued today by Governor Cuomo's Division of the Budget (DOB) The Mid-Year Update—released 10 days past the Oct. 30 deadline, keeping alive the Governor's perfect record of annual tardiness—pegs the budget gap at $3.070 billion for the fiscal year that starts next April 1. That's down from $4.027 billion as of the end of the first fiscal quarter. Read More