New York's Common Retirement Fund (CRF) fell nearly two percentage points short of its investment earnings target last year—and the state's other major public pension funds are on the same sub-par track. Read More
Blog
The scores of New York's nursing homes dipped to an average of 3.19 out of 5 stars in the federal government's latest Nursing Home Compare report card, down from 3.33 in January. However, the national average dropped even further, from 3.35 stars to 3.06. New York's standing improved from 31st to 27th among the 50 states. Read More
Today's jobs report from the state Labor Department carried the usual "Jobs at All-Time High" headline (when the "high" disappears, think recession). Also as usual, the April numbers showed a wide regional variation in private job creation rates around the state—and New York as a whole continues to trail employment growth nationally. Read More
New York’s most populous suburban county has just ratified a trio of labor deals with its largest unions—and, in the process, showcased some of the worst aspects of collective bargaining across the state. Read More
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has assigned its own police force to monitor attendance and overtime use by Long Island Railroad employees, the Daily News reports. Read More
A bill passed by the state Senate last week could shift millions of dollars in costs from labor unions to the state’s unemployment insurance (UI) program while making employers indirectly subsidize union strikes. Read More
In what's become an annual tradition, New York state lawmakers have re-introduced bills designed to prohibit or restrict changes to expensive continuing health insurance coverage for current and future government retirees—which would effectively lock in a growing unfunded liability of more than a quarter trillion dollars for taxpayers across the state. Read More
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has apparently doubled the price tag of her Medicare buy-in proposal, from 4 percent of income to 8 percent – but the math still does not add up. Read More
The new state budget features a larger-than-usual increase in Medicaid spending and two new coverage mandates for private insurers – adding to the already steep costs of health care for New York's taxpayers and policyholders. Read More
The hastily approved raise for New York’s governor had an unintended consequence: sweetening the Tier 6 pension plan enacted in 2012 and saddling taxpayers with an untold amount of higher pension costs. Read More
With the Legislature getting ready to pass a budget for the fiscal year starting April 1, some fresh data and analysis emerging from the world outside Albany in the past week or so has raised new questions about the durability of the state's revenue base. Read More
It’s commonly perceived that New York’s education funding system directs more money to wealthier, whiter schools than to poorer, less white schools – and that the distribution of state aid reinforces those inequities. Looking at the totality of school spending across the state, however, different patterns emerge. Read More