Blog

Eighteen school districts sought to override the state's property tax cap in yesterday's school budget votes—the fewest attempts since the tax cap was enacted. Seven of those districts failed to win the 60 percent supermajority required to override the cap. Read More

The state Senate's Republican majority is standing behind its pledge to make New York's property tax cap permanent. Read More

New York State's economic development agency spent more than $200 million to advertise its programs without attempting to measure whether the ads produced results, according to an audit by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli. Read More

While the news media and public were distracted by the questions swirling around the future leadership of the Senate Republican majority, the Senate this week moved a bill that would lock in tens of billions of dollars of unfunded lifetime health insurance coverage health coverage for police and firefighters. Read More

Squirreled away in the new state budget is a provision—first proposed by Governor Andrew Cuomo—that will guarantee future periodic pay raises for the governor, New York State legislators and other state government officials. But is it constitutional? Read More

New Yorkers who haven't yet filed their 2014 tax returns are about to be reminded that the Empire State's income tax form is more cluttered than ever -- thanks, in part, to a proliferation of voluntary contribution "check-off" boxes. Since the establishment of the "Return a Gift to Wildlife" fund in 1982, the list of check-offs has expand to 10 causes, including cancer research, veterans remembrance and the development of the 9/11 memorial. As if that wasn't enough, some mental health groups want lawmakers to approve an eleventh checkoff, this one to be known as "Gift for Eliminating the Stigma Relating to Mental Illness." Read More

Albany's biggest, juiciest capital pork pie — the mysterious State and Municipal Facilities Program — just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Read More

One of the best things about New York's newly adopted state budget for fiscal 2016 is something that's not in it (yet): a costly new state subsidy of homeowners' local property taxes. Governor Cuomo's Executive Budget proposal included an income tax credit (of the type also known as a "circuit breaker") that, when fully implemented by 2019, would funnel $1.7 billion a year to about half of the state's homeowners, plus renters. Read More

Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plan for allocating $5.4 billion in windfall funds has survived, almost intact, in the agreed-upon New York State budget for the 2016 fiscal year, which starts April 1. Consistent with Cuomo’s original vision, the final plan shortchanges basic transportation and municipal infrastructure. Read More

The pork-barrel spending better known as legislative member items has reappeared in a budget bill that New York State legislators are expected to vote on this week. Read More

New York’s property tax cap has survived a legal challenge from the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) for the second time in six months. Read More

Good news to cap off Sunshine Week: at least some local government and school officials are working to make their websites more useful and informative. Read More