A private charity is seeking the New York Legislature’s go-ahead to build housing for critically ill kids and their families on state-owned property. The Legislature’s answer: sure, you can go ahead and build—if you’re willing to pay extra (possibly a lot extra) to our union friends to do the work. Read More
On the whole, New Yorkers can breathe a sigh of relief if the state Senate’s gridlock forces an early end to the 2018 regular session of the Legislature. Otherwise, the next two weeks will still leave plenty of time for lawmakers to get up to no good. Read More
Health insurers’ rate applications for 2019, which became public late Friday, raise red flags about the condition of New York’s non-group market. Read More
In addition to being one of the wedge issues that paralyzed the state Senate this week, the Comprehensive Contraceptive Coverage Act is also an insurance mandate. And like the dozens of other mandates pending in Albany, it’s being debated without a clear analysis of costs and benefits. Read More
Earlier this year, Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed a new disclosure standard requiring that details of proposed government union contracts be shared with the public before ratification. Unfortunately—and not for the first time—the governor has failed to meet the standard himself. Read More
New York surpassed all states with per-pupil elementary and secondary school spending of $22,366 per pupil as of 2016, according to the latest U.S. Census data. Read More
Year-over-year private-sector job growth in New York continued along a familiar path last month—stronger downstate than upstate, and somewhat weaker overall than the national average. Read More
In the wake of Tuesday’s school budget votes, 16 school districts around New York must decide whether to call for a second referendum after seeing their original proposals rejected. Read More
After months of behind-the-scenes work, the state Department of Taxation and Finance is circulating a "discussion draft" of proposed bill language creating a new form of state tax designed to preserve some federal income tax deductibility for state and local taxes (SALT) paid by partners in unincorporated firms. Read More
New York's newly enacted state budget for the fiscal year that started April 1 is balanced with higher-than-anticipated tax receipts, but out-year projected budget gaps have grown significantly larger, according to quarterly financial plan update issued late Friday afternoon by Governor Cuomo's Division of the Budget (DOB). Read More
High-tax New York has just lost one of its oldest money-management firms to low-tax Nashville, Tennessee—highlighting an ongoing shift of Wall Street jobs, and of high earners in general. Read More
Our latest scan of pending health insurance mandates identified 120 bills, an increase of 29, or almost one-third, since Mandate Watch was inaugurated in March 2017. Read More