Tag: Debt

Critics said the bond act would incur debt for years after the equipment becomes obsolete and new equipment needs to be purchased. "New York should think hard before supporting this costly and wasteful proposal," said E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank. Read More

What the bond’s potential interest costs might be are difficult to predict, though one fiscal watchdog, E.J. McMahon, president of the Empire Center for Public Policy, estimated the true cost of the $2 billion bond will be at least $500 million in interest. “It is one of the most poorly conceived and wasteful bond acts in New York State history,” McMahon said. Read More

“The bond act ultimately isn’t about the desirability of classroom technology or pre-K expansions — although both are certainly debatable,” E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center said in a statement he issued Monday. “The core issue raised by Proposal 3 is whether a state general obligation bond issue, even one with a relatively short ‘weighted average’ duration of 10 to 20 years, is the best way of paying for a combination of short-lived tech and long-lived buildings, when existing annual state aid categories already subsidize both without testing the state’s bond limits.” Read More

In New York, the proposal is drawing criticism from those who say the state shouldn’t use scarce capital-financing capacity for equipment that may become obsolete or may not be used properly because of lack of training. E.J. McMahon, president of the Empire Center for New York State Policy in Albany, a research group that advocates less government spending, said not every school district needs the money. “You’re putting cash on the table in front of bureaucrats saying use it or lose it, whether they need it or not,” McMahon said. Read More

"If you spend on those things," added Empire Center for Public Policy's E.J. McMahon Monday, "you have to keep spending more, and raise taxes again year after year after year — to support the tech, to get the curriculum to use it, to train teachers on how to use it." Read More

Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, has been named by Governor Cuomo to a commission “charged with advising the State on how to best invest the Governor’s proposed $2 billion Smart Schools Bond Act in order to enhance teaching and learning through technology,” as announced by the governor’s office today.* 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