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State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has announced a “fiscal stress monitoring system” to provide an early warning of problems in local governments and school districts, which can only be a good idea... Read More

Are New York City's public-pension managers running an investment fund -- or an affordable-housing program? Read More

Federal Medicaid reimbursements to New York State could be cut by $1 billion a year to make up for more than two decades of excessive claims that one congressman compared to “fraud.” Read More

Asked what the state might do to help fiscally distressed upstate cities, Governor Cuomo today said his administration was “looking at various approaches to help cities more on an individual basis than on a collective basis.” Read More

State Sen. Tom Libous of Binghamton, deputy leader of the Republican majority in the Legislature’s upper house, has been running a campaign commercial that takes credit for working with Governor Andrew Cuomo to enact, among other things, “the largest middle-class tax cut in 58 years.” Read More

Residents of the metropolitan area pay some of the highest energy prices in the nation -- fully 50 percent above the national average for electricity and 21 percent above average for natural gas, according to the latest federal data. Unfortunately, the situation is only likely to get worse in years ahead, thanks in part to New York State energy policy that seems grounded mainly in wishful thinking. Read More

The budgetary problems of bigger New York localities, such as Yonkers, tend to dominate the headlines — but contenders for the dubious distinction of most financially troubled municipality in the Empire State would also include Schenectady... Read More

Back in 2005, a Suffolk County grand jury was convened to investigate waste, fraud and fiscal mismanagement in Suffolk's public schools. Among its key findings was "an abject lack of transparency" regarding the area where school districts spend the vast bulk of their funds: salaries and benefits. Read More