The New York State Teachers' Retirement System (NYSTRS) will reduce its pension contribution rates for a third consecutive year in 2017-18, even though the pension fund's investment returns came in well below its target rate in fiscal 2016. Read More
Nearly all of New York State's year-to-year private sector employment growth remains concentrated in New York City and its suburbs, according to the latest state Labor Department statistics. Read More
Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York's second largest union of state government employees just announced a tentative contract deal that, if ultimately extended to all state workers, could add roughly $1.5 billion in salary costs to New York's budget by fiscal 2019. Cuomo said the state had agreed to raise salaries for Public Employees Federation (PEF) members by 2 percent a year over three years, or a cumulative 6.12 percent, starting in the current fiscal year. Read More
Some of New York’s worst tendencies in bargaining with government unions were on display yesterday in Buffalo—even before the school board illegally took things behind closed doors. Read More
Based on the latest revenue numbers, New York State's fiscal situation is getting tighter by the month. Read More
Governor Andrew Cuomo’s energy czar isn’t letting facts get in the way of attacking the growing number of dissenters who challenge Cuomo’s new Clean Energy Standard. Read More
Does the massive tax loss claimed by Donald J. Trump 20 years ago point to some sort of loophole for the wealthy in New York State's current tax law? That's the implication of Jim Dwyer's column in today's New York Times. But Dwyer reads too much into some data from the city's Independent Budget Office. Read More
New York ranks 49th out of 50 states in the Tax Foundation's 2017 State Business Tax Climate Index, released today. (New Jersey seems permanently mired in last place, so we've got that going for us, which is nice.) The Empire State's overall ranking on the widely noticed index is unchanged from last year, has ranged between 48th and 50th for a decade now, and has been 49 for most of Governor Andrew Cuomo's tenure. Read More