City Comptroller John Liu was asked at a Crain's NY Breakfast last week whether he would favor shifting future municipal employees from a defined-benefit pension system to a 401(k)-style defined-contribution system. His reply, according to Crain's Insider... Read More
As New Yorkers rush to meet the April 15 deadline for filing state and federal income tax returns, here is a collection of recent articles about taxes from the Empire Center and the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. Read More
All 59 of the public retirement systems covering most teachers in the United States—including both of New York’s—face pension obligations far greater than they admit, according to a newly issued study from the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and the Foundation for Educational Choice. The study estimates the total unfunded liabilities of the nation’s teacher plans at $933 billion, nearly three times the officially acknowledged shortfall, including a funding gap of more than $60 billion in the two New York systems. Read More
Payroll records for 7,449 employees of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have been posted on SeeThroughNY.net, the Empire Center’s government transparency web site for taxpayers. The new data includes names, titles, locations, base pay rates and total pay received for those employees in 2009. Read More
... this week, but what the state did with the money it reaped during the bubble(s). Factoids: Between 1993, the year (roughly) before the tech boom started, and 2007, the last year of the credit bubble, New York State personal-income tax collections... Read More
Unions not surprisingly don't like salary freezes, which are increasingly popular with elected officials as the New York state, its municipalities and school districts struggle with red ink. Freezing wages, union officials argue, violates... Read More
Saying "the state has run out of money," Governor David Paterson is withholding scheduled 4 percent raises for 137,500 state employees until the Legislature enacts a state budget that closes a $9 billion budget gap. Judging from budget developments, state workers may have to wait.. Read More
School districts that freeze employee salaries would get more state aid under a plan being considered by Albany lawmakers. This, of course, would require unions representing... Read More