One of the best things about New York's newly adopted state budget for fiscal 2016 is something that's not in it (yet): a costly new state subsidy of homeowners' local property taxes. Governor Cuomo's Executive Budget proposal included an income tax credit (of the type also known as a "circuit breaker") that, when fully implemented by 2019, would funnel $1.7 billion a year to about half of the state's homeowners, plus renters. Read More
Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plan for allocating $5.4 billion in windfall funds has survived, almost intact, in the agreed-upon New York State budget for the 2016 fiscal year, which starts April 1. Consistent with Cuomo’s original vision, the final plan shortchanges basic transportation and municipal infrastructure. Read More
The pork-barrel spending better known as legislative member items has reappeared in a budget bill that New York State legislators are expected to vote on this week. Read More
New York’s property tax cap has survived a legal challenge from the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) for the second time in six months. Read More
Good news to cap off Sunshine Week: at least some local government and school officials are working to make their websites more useful and informative. Read More
Throughout New York State, no public document has a greater impact on tax burdens and educational performance than the local teacher union contract. Yet few school districts have made any effort to share these contracts with taxpayers — and so the Empire Center has stepped into the breach by doing it for them. Read More
New York's local property tax cap would be made permanent under the Senate Republican version of a new state budget. From the taxpayers' perspective, it's very encouraging to see the Senate make a high-profile move to line up on this issue beside Gov. Cuomo, who already has promised to seek the cap's permanent enactment. Read More
New York City's welfare caseloads are expanding again—a deliberate and predictable outcome of Mayor Bill De Blasio's policies, as Manhattan Institute's Steve Eide points out in his new "Poverty and Progress in New York" report. Read More