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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

Average per-pupil spending under proposed 2014-15 school budgets will increase by 3.2 percent, more than one-and-a-half times the 1.9 percent projected inflation rate, according to analysis issued today by the Empire Center for Public Policy. 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

Updated pension data for retired New York State public school teachers and administrators, released to the Empire Center pursuant to a landmark Court of Appeals ruling last week, were posted online today atwww.SeeThroughNY.net. 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