Governor Andrew Cuomo today finally got around to announcing most of the members of the “Tax Reform and Fairness Commission,” which he first promised to create a year ago as part of the legislative deal that temporarily extended the state’s income tax hike on million-dollar earners. Read More
In a news conference just before yesterday’s legislative adjournment, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that he would grant the required “messages of necessity” to pave the way for a vote on amended versions of two New York City bills — one related to condo-coop tax abatements, and the other to a measure implementing an important technical change in actuarial assumptions for the New York City pension funds. Read More
It sounds like Governor Cuomo may be wavering on the optional defined-contribution (DC) retirement plan that was the single most innovative aspect of his Tier 6 pension reform proposal. Read More
Twenty-nine days past the legal deadline, the Cuomo Administration finally got around to posting the state’s required mid-year financial plan update on the Division of the Budget (DOB) website late yesterday afternoon. As expected, the report does not included an estimate of fiscal impacts from Superstorm Sandy. DOB says it is still working on those numbers. Read More
Governor Andrew Cuomo’s propensity for creating advisory committees, commissions and task forces — more than two dozen in all — is the subject of an article in today’sWall Street Journal Read More
For a second straight year, Governor Andrew Cuomo has fallen behind the schedule for releasing the required quarterly update to the state financial plan. And for a second straight year, the governor can’t come up with a persuasive reason for the delay. Read More
For a second time, Governor Cuomo has vetoed a bill that would require the state to reimburse New York City for retiree health benefits paid to former employees of the bankrupt New York City Off-Track Betting Corp. (OTB). That’s good. Unfortunately, once again, he has left the door open to signing the bill in the future. And that’s troubling. 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