Residents of the Mid-Hudson village of Liberty had the highest effective property tax rate in New York (outside New York City and Nassau) during fiscal year 2019, according to the newest edition of Benchmarking NY, the Empire Center’s annual examination of local property taxes. Read More
The remarkable thing about state's multi-billion-dollar Medicaid crisis is that it is almost entirely the result of the Cuomo administration's own actions. There is no economic downturn or change in federal policy that explains the program's current $4 billion deficit, or its $3 billion projected gap in the next fiscal year, as confirmed in Friday's mid-year update to the state financial plan. Read More
Thanks to Medicaid over-spending, New York’s state budget gaps have blown up to their highest levels since the Great Recession. Read More
Out of the 59,241 educators in the retirement system earning six-figure pay last year, 87% were employed in downstate suburban districts, according to a review by the Empire Center, a fiscally conservative think tank in Albany. Read More
Governor Andrew Cuomo’s regulatory attack on National Grid’s Long Island gas moratorium threatens to have broader negative financial effects on all of the state’s investor-owned utilities—with implications for the overall business climate as well. Read More
Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank based in Albany, is criticizing the scholarship, saying the excelsior program is limited to SUNY and CUNY students even though it says private schools educate more students. Read More
Let's start with Medicaid. In March, with Medicaid spending running far over budget, the governor quietly delayed into April a $2 billion payment due to providers. April is the start of the new fiscal year, so the move technically kept Medicaid spending under the cap that he'd instituted. The maneuver was discovered only a few months later, when sharp-eyed journalist Bill Hammond found a line about the payment delay in a budget document. Read More
At the same time, a government watchdog group says New York needs to get its Medicaid spending under control. The Empire Center is concerned the state will consider delaying $1 billion in payments to avoid piercing its annual cap for the second time in a year. Read More