Upstate New York's largest cities saw slight population declines over the year ending July 1, 2014, while New York City and other downstate cities saw a slight bump, according to new estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Read More
Category: Media Coverage
Business leaders gathered with the public policy think tank the Empire Center to make the case to make the cap permanent. Read More
The state's property-tax cap has saved New York homeowners as much as $7.6 billion in school taxes since it was enacted in 2011, a report Tuesday contended. Read More
At the same time enrollment in Monroe County’s suburban schools has fallen by 5 percent, overall school spending has increased here by nearly 10 percent. Read More
Otsego, Delaware and other small counties are like "orphans" facing forces beyond their control in the storm of upstate's economic challenges, a public policy analyst said Wednesday. Edmund J. McMahon, president of the Empire Center for Public Policy, spoke about upstate's deficit in economic growth to about 35 guests at a meeting of Citizen Voices at The Carriage House, 790 Southside Drive in Oneonta. Read More
A new analysis by the fiscally conservative Empire Center shows spending per pupil in Genesee County’s eight school districts will increase by 2 percent this year. Read More
Many municipalities in New York have begrudgingly borrowed to pay off annual pension costs in recent years, but they are doing less of it, state records show. Read More
E.J. McMahon, president of the Empire Center for New York State Policy, a conservative think tank based in Albany, said districts have incentive to stay under the cap. Though he supports the cap, McMahon said the rebate program forces districts to waste time writing plans that meet the rules instead of finding the most logical efficiencies. “This program is simply red tape,” he said. Read More