Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to spend $340 million in budget windfall cash on a temporary state tax rebate of Thruway tolls is “an indefensible gimmick,” E.J. McMahon, president of the Empire Center, testified today at a Joint Legislative Budget Hearing in Albany. Read More
Lawmakers should reject the Thruway toll gimmicks in the budget, and should repair the 'cliff' in the state's estate tax, Empire Center president E.J. McMahon testified. Read More
The complete 2015 New York state government payroll is now posted on SeeThroughNY.net, the Empire Center’s government transparency website. Read More
The Empire Center’s unique online “Explore Your State Budget” app has been updated to reflect financial data in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposed 2016-17 Executive Budget. Read More
For the third time in as many years, a state Senate committee has approved and sent to the Senate floor a bill that would lock in tens of billions of dollars worth of unfunded retirement health insurance coverage promised to New York government employees. The bill in question, sponsored by Republican Sen. Andrew Lanza of Staten Island, is designed to prevent state and local government employers from even attempting to restructure other post-employment benefits (OPEB) without first bargaining such changes with public employee unions. Read More
State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has officially confirmed what federal inflation statistics were already telegraphing: New York's statutory cap on local school property tax levies will be just a hair above zero for 2016-17 school year budgets, which will be submitted for voter approval in May. Read More
In his combined State of the State and budget message last week, Gov. Cuomo officially unveiled $100 billion in “transformative" infrastructure projects — enough to “make Governor [Nelson] Rockefeller jealous.” That wouldn’t be easy, even if it were desirable. To finance a 15-year building binge that included most of the State University system — not to mention countless other capital projects capped by Albany’s monstrously modernist Empire State Plaza — New York’s legendary Republican governor from 1959 to 1973 quintupled state debt. Cuomo clearly hopes his plans will be perceived as Rockefeller-esque in scope. So how does he plan to pay for it all? The answer: for the most part, he doesn’t. Read More
New Yorkers now can scrutinize more state pork-barrel spending details than ever, thanks to a newly expanded feature on SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s transparency website. Recipient names and amounts for nearly 4,000 state grants totaling more than $600 million, including more than 500 approved on the final day of the 2015 legislative session, were added to SeeThroughNY today. Read More