The property tax cap for New York counties, towns and villages with fiscal years starting January 1, 2015 will start at 1.56 percent, slightly lower than last year's starting rate of 1.66 percent. The cap in each locality will vary based on the amount of applicable allowable exclusions for growth in local property values. Localities also will be able to exclude the amount by which the change in pension contributions exceeds two percentage points Read More
If GE and IBM have some truly great and promising ideas for next-generation semiconductor materials, why do they need a New York taxpayer subsidy to develop them? Ira Stoll has provided some answers in a must-read column. Read More
Most high-income New York City residents who left the city in 2012 moved to neighboring jurisdictions, according to a new analysis of federal Census data by the city Independent Budget Office (IBO). Today's Times claims this shows that wealthy New Yorkers are not "fleeing the city for tax havens." But who says they are? Besides, compared to the city, suburban New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are tax havens. Read More
After seven months of foot-dragging, New York's economic development agency finally got around to answering the Empire Center's request for details of state spending on an advertising campaign promoting the Start-Up NY tax-free zone program. The total price tag for the campaign over the past year has been nearly $35 million, most of it spent on TV commercials outside and inside New York State, according to the summary we received. Read More
New York State's year-over-year private sector job creation rate remained behind the national average in June. Seventy percent of the new jobs were in New York City, and upstate employment barely grew at all. Read More
State Senate Republicans have issued a news release explaining how they'd like to spend upwards of $3 billion in penalties that will be paid into the state budget's general fund by the French bank BNP Paribas for violating trading sanctions with Cuba, Iran and Sudan. Unfortunately, the Senate's "bold plan" isn't nearly bold enough. Read More
New York's $3.3 billion windfall from the criminal penalties paid by a French bank should be spent to backfill the state's under-nourished and over-leveraged transportation capital plans. Read More
Today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Harris v. Quinn has significant implications for at least 47,000 informal, private child care providers who have been forced to pay the equivalent of dues to two of New York State’s largest public-sector unions. Read More
No, it is not April 1: Gov. Andrew Cuomo really did give all New York State employees "an extra hour for extended lunch" to watch the mid-day World Cup soccer match between the U.S. and Germany. An hour's worth of time for all 125,555 full-time equivalent employees of the executive branch of state government translates into at least $4 million in wages and salaries, based on the latest payroll data from the state comptroller's office. Read More
A bill rushed to passage by both houses of the Legislature last week would gut local control of police discipline by deeming it a subject of collective bargaining throughout the state. The bill can be seen as a fresh test of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's commitment to "transform" a state dominated by public employee unions. Read More
The growth prospects for New York’s metropolitan areas between 2013 and 2020 range from dismal upstate to mediocre downstate, according to a study issued by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Read More
Two late-breaking bills stand out among more than a half-dozen pension sweeteners passed by New York’s state Legislature during the final days of the 2014 session. One would restore a benefit cut by Gov. Cuomo's Tier 6 reform, and the other would vastly expand pension credit for time served in the military. Read More