Two days after the Empire Center highlighted looming deficits in the state Thruway Authority budget, the authority's board has put off the meeting at which it was expected to adopt a final budget for 2015. Read More
Category: Blog
The New York State Thruway Authority could need to raise tolls by nearly 5 percent to balance its financial plan next year—on the way to a 44 percent toll increase by 2018, according to the “toll revenue target” in the authority’s proposed 2015 budget. Read More
Nearly six months after being passed by the state Legislature, two bills with significant implications for public pension benefit levels and costs in New York finally have been sent to Governor Andrew Cuomo for his veto or signature. Read More
New York’s largest state and local government employee union is ending its unconstitutional collection of mandatory agency fees from day care providers who receive subsidies from the state, according to a letter the union has sent to providers. Read More
With the stroke of a pen, President Barack Obama has just put added pressure on the second-biggest category of New York’s state operating funds budget—Medicaid. Obama’s recent executive order on immigration could drive up New York’s Medicaid costs by $1.1 billion to $2 billion, state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos warned in a letter yesterday to the state’s U.S. senators. Read More
If wishes were horses, the news conference held in Albany yesterday by the New York State Educational Conference Board could be re-staged as the Charge of the Light Brigade. Read More
New York’s state government pension costs will be nearly $1.6 billion above previously projected levels over the next four years, according the Mid-Year Financial Plan Update that was finally issued today—11 days behind schedule, and nearly a week after Election Day—by Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Division of the Budget (DOB). Read More
Calling it an "oppressive unfunded mandate" that would impose $57 million in "near term obligations" on local governments across New York State, Governor Cuomo has vetoed a bill that would have allowed public employees to claim up to three years worth of pension service credit for time spent in peacetime military duty. Read More