New York’s local property tax cap has become an issue in a hotly contested Hudson Valley congressional race, where a specious anti-cap argument rejected by state courts has been revived by the Democratic candidate, Zephyr Teachout. Read More
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The New York State Teachers' Retirement System (NYSTRS) will reduce its pension contribution rates for a third consecutive year in 2017-18, even though the pension fund's investment returns came in well below its target rate in fiscal 2016. Read More
The state of New York is home to 5.7 million parcels of property worth an estimated $2.8 trillion — with a ‘t.’ But when property-tax bills go out each year, nearly a third of that value — about $866 billion — never gets billed. Ov Read More
The Empire Center for Public Policy has calculated effective property tax rates and per-capita values for the spending, debt and tax levels of local governments. Read More
The Empire Center's annual “Benchmarking New York” report compares and ranks government tax, spending and debt levels for hundreds of counties, towns, cities and villages throughout New York. Read More
Nearly all of New York State's year-to-year private sector employment growth remains concentrated in New York City and its suburbs, according to the latest state Labor Department statistics. Read More
Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York's second largest union of state government employees just announced a tentative contract deal that, if ultimately extended to all state workers, could add roughly $1.5 billion in salary costs to New York's budget by fiscal 2019. Cuomo said the state had agreed to raise salaries for Public Employees Federation (PEF) members by 2 percent a year over three years, or a cumulative 6.12 percent, starting in the current fiscal year. Read More
Some of New York’s worst tendencies in bargaining with government unions were on display yesterday in Buffalo—even before the school board illegally took things behind closed doors. Read More