Governor Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders have just announced a deal on a major increase in the state income tax rates compared to what is scheduled under current law — i.e., the official breaking of the Cuomo promise not to raise taxes. Read More
Instead of raising $85 million by hiking commercial tolls 45 percent, the state Thruway Authority will be shifting at least $60 million in State Police Thruway patrol costs to the state budget’s general fund. Read More
The Tier 6 pension “reform” enacted by New York last year applies to all state and local employees who join the state Employee Retirement System or the Police and Fire Retirement System after April 1, 2012 Read More
Governor Andrew Cuomo and the Budget Division are spreading the word via Twitter that Standard & Poor’s has given its top AAA rating to the state’s $1 billion sales tax revenue bond issue. Read More
AUTHOR’S NOTE: PLEASE SEE BELOW FOR IMPORTANT CORRECTIONS TO THIS POST IN BOLD.In May, after months of turmoil, Albany agreed to a new package of taxes for the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Aut Read More
Moody’s Investor Service has just lowered the New York State Thruway Authority’s senior lien revenue bond rating by a notch, from A2 to A1, citing the authority’s failure to identify a plan for raising tolls sufficiently to finance the building of the new Tappan Zee Bridge. Standard & Poor’s last month did much the same thing, for essentially the same reason. Read More
Although the botched Affordable Care Act (ACA) rollout is shaping up nationally as a political and bureaucratic disaster, the Cuomo administration is warning New York health insurance agents and brokers not to try to get around the new Obamacare requirements for small group health plans here. Read More
New York’s highest court has just ruled—not for the first time—that Article VII, Section 8.1 of the State Constitution does not mean what it seems to say in prohibiting gifts and loans of state money “to or in aid of any private corporation or association, or private undertaking.” Read More