Governor Andrew Cuomo, who already signed into law one increase in New York’s statewide minimum wage, has agreed to support raising the minimum another notch and giving localities the discretion to go even higher — all reportedly as a condition for receiving the endorsement of the labor union-dominated Working Families Party (WFP). Read More
"Uneven growth" in U.S. factory jobs since the recession is the subject of a front-page article in today's Wall Street Journal--and upstate New York is featured as a prime example of a region left behind by the positive trend. Read More
The cities of Buffalo and Niagara Falls continued to lose population between 2010 and 2013, according to the latest U.S. Census estimates, and the Buffalo-Niagara Falls metro area created jobs at less than half the national rate in the past year, Labor Department data show. But never fear: state and local pols are riding to Western New York’s rescue with a sure-thing ”catalyst of economic growth.” It’s … a new stadium for the Buffalo Bills. Read More
New York once again tops the 50-state (plus D.C.) rankings of per-pupil spending in the latest U.S. Census Bureau data on public school finances. As of 2012, public schools in the Empire State spent $19,552 per pupil—84 percent above the U.S. average, according to the latest annual Census Bureau report, which was released today. The gap between New York and the rest of the U.S. has increased significantly during the latest six years for which the Census Bureau has compiled these statistics. As of 2005-06, New York’s per pupil spending was 63 percent above average. Read More
Twenty-four school districts sought to override the state’s property tax levy cap in yesterday’s school budget votes. Nine districts, or 38 percent of those attempting, failed to garner the 60 percent supermajority vote needed to pass an override. The vast majority of school districts held their proposed tax levies below the statewide average of about 2.1 percent, including allowances for voter-approved capital spending, property taxes generated by new construction, and other factors. On a per-pupil basis, as detailed in the Empire Center’s annual School Budget Spotlight, the average proposed tax levy hike came to 2.6 percent. Spending growth in proposed budgets was 3.2 percent per pupil, one and a half times the inflation rate. Read More
New York State’s enacted budget and New York City’s proposed budget for fiscal 2015 both project that welfare cash assistance caseloads will decline in the year ahead. Since the city accounts for nearly two-thirds of the state caseload, those trends are closely related. Read More
New York State’s personal income tax (PIT) collections in April were a whopping $1.3 billion lower than in the same month last year, according to state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s just-released monthly cash report.* Read More
Year-to-year private sector job growth in New York trailed the national average once again in April, according to the latest monthly state Labor Department report. And on a month-to-month, seasonally adjusted basis, New York added almost no jobs in April, the report showed. Read More
Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s announcement today of “stellar” pension fund investment earnings in fiscal 2014 doesn’t mean tax-funded pension costs will be headed rapidly back to “normal,” whatever that may be. Read More
The multi-year tables in New York State’s just-released Enacted Budget Financial Plan for fiscal 2015 make continued use of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s new fiscal conjuring device: a lump-sum, below-the-line reduction in future projected spending, based on the assumption that the governor will “propose, and negotiate with the Legislature to enact budgets that hold State Operating Funds spending growth to 2 percent.” Read More
The state Court of Appeals today ruled, 6-0, in favor of the Empire Center’s challenge of lower court decisions that allowed the New York State and New York City Teachers Retirement Systems (NYSTRS and NYCTRS, respectively) to keep secret the names of retired employees receiving pensions. See the full opinion by Judge Robert Smith here. Read More
New York’s newly enacted state budget includes what looks like the biggest, juiciest capital pork pie Albany has cooked up since before the Great Recession. The State and Municipal Facilities Program first popped out of the budget oven last year in the form of a $385 million appropriation, of which $26.65 million was spent. Read More