Just in time for Wall Street’s latest bout of bearish volatility, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli is taking an important step to fortify New York’s largest pension fund. Too bad he also passed up a golden opportunity to go further in the right direction. Read More
Just in time for Wall Street’s latest bout of bearish volatility, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli is taking an important step to fortify New York’s largest pension fund. Read More
Bill de Blasio was at a ballgame in Queens last Sunday afternoon when a group of rural landowners, town officials, Second Amendment advocates and Tea Party activists rallied in the Southern Tier village of Bainbridge on behalf of a radical reform that would dramatically enhance the mayor’s power in his own backyard: a breakup of New York state. Read More
If the New York counties north of the New York City metro region were to split off and become a separate state, how would it rank nationally? The question is prompted by news accounts of last weekend's Southern Tier rally by a coalition of groups whose members want upstate to secede from the rest of New York. Not all the advocates favor creation of a separate state, however. Some favor absorption into Pennsylvania, while others suggest avoiding the constitutional hurdles of full statehood by changing New York's own constitution to create two "autonomous regions" within the outline of a "token" remaining single state. In addition, their definitions of "upstate" seem to differ. Read More
The stock market turmoil of the last week is a reminder of why it's risky, verging on foolhardy, for New York's state government to depend as heavily as it does on high-income households and Wall Street investors. In the current fiscal year, taxes paid by the highest-earning 1 percent of New York taxpayers—including commuters to jobs in the state—are expected to generate 43 percent of personal income tax receipts, which in turn translates into 27 percent of total state taxes. Read More
New York's tax climate for key business sectors—with the notable exception of manufacturing—ranks at or near the bottom among 50 states, according to study by the Tax Foundation and the KPMG accounting firm. Read More
On the heels of a sub-par fiscal year, New York State's largest public pension fund has just reported another weak quarter for investment returns. State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli today said the Common Retirement Fund (CRF), of which he is sole trustee, had gained just 0.52 percent during the three months ending June 30, the first quarter of the fund's 2015-16 fiscal year. The CRF finances pension benefits for nearly all non-New York City state and local government retirees, other than educational professionals. Read More
The state Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Empire Center for Public Policy have reached an out-of-court settlement in which the MTA acknowledges its failure to respond “in a timely manner” to the Center’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request. Read More