The Times ran a on Mayor Bloomberg's plan to develop the Far West Side of Manhattan. The story doesn't mention how drastically City Hall has had to change its financial estimates -- and make actual taxpayer-cash outlays -- for the projec Read More
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Governor Andrew Cuomo is making a big deal out of the failure of a congressional “super committee” to produce a deal on reducing the federal budget deficit. This is supposed to trigger $1.2 trillion in across-the-board federal budget cuts over a 10-year period beginning in 2013—which, Cuomo said yesterday, could translate into $5 billion in lost federal funding for New York. Read More
New York’s highest court has just ruled—not for the first time—that Article VII, Section 8.1 of the State Constitution does not mean what it seems to say in prohibiting gifts and loans of state money “to or in aid of any private corporation or association, or private undertaking.” Read More
New York’s highest state court has ruled that a broad “no layoff” clause in a public-sector labor contract cannot necessarily be used to prevent job eliminations by a government employer. Read More
So, here’s a non-surprise: The financial outlook for New York’s state government has deteriorated in the past few months, according to the Mid-Year Financial Plan Update from the Division of the Budget (DOB). Read More
During his first six months in office, New York governor Andrew Cuomo pulled off something of a fiscal trifecta: closing a $10 billion state-budget gap without raising taxes, capping local-property-tax levies, and wringing concessions out of state-government labor unions. Read More
New York state’s mid-year financial plan update was due on Oct. 31, and state agency heads were scheduled to present their budget requests at hearings last week. Read More