“Frankenstorm” could easily inundate the tenuously balanced budgets of New York State, New York City and countless other localities in the storm’s path... Read More
Category: Blog
Based on inflation trends through the first 11 months of 2013, it looks like the starting point for property tax levy caps affecting 2014-15 school budgets across New York will be lower than 2 percent. Read More
Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano has reached a tentative contract deal with the Nassau Police Benevolent Association (PBA). That’s what Nassau residents have been told via Newsday and the other Long Island news media, at any rate. Read More
The biggest of the almost-new taxes in Governor Cuomo’s “no new taxes” budget is being targeted for elimination by state Senate Republicans. They were joined today by business and industry representatives in calling on Cuomo to remove the extension of the Section 18-A “assessment” from his budget proposal. Read More
Senate Republicans have issued a preliminary report laying out a series of state tax reform options and recommendations while also calling for a 2 percent cap on state spending to generate a “freedom fund” to pay for further tax reductions. Read More
The state Senate’s one-house budget puts its own twist on Governor Cuomo’s dubious pension “smoothing” plan. The Senate version would give the state, as well as localities and school districts, the option of significantly under-paying pension contributions over the next few years... Read More
Governor Andrew Cuomo floated quite a few dubious ideas in his State of the State address yesterday, a couple of which are the subject of my Newsday column today—but the most dubious proposal of all came from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver in his own brief remarks before the governor spoke. Read More
Employment and wage growth between March 2011 and March 2012 was below the national average in most of New York’s largest counties, according to the quarterly census of employment and wages released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics... Read More