Category: Media Coverage

Shawn Morse is a busy man. He’s a Cohoes city firefighter and also chairman of the Albany County Legislature, where he’s tasked with focusing the priorities of 38 fellow lawmakers who, like Morse, claim their legislative work is a full-time job. Their elected positions have some benefits, though. The Albany County Legislature, like several thousand local government bodies statewide, passes a resolution every year or so declaring that a standard workweek for a select group of elected and appointed officials, including themselves, is just 30 hours. The declaration is required under state regulations for the public officials to earn full-time pension credits in the state retirement system. Read More

Read article  By Karen DeWitt Albany, New York – The just- completed New York legislative session is not exactly getting rave revues from fiscal watchdogs or in newspaper editorial pages around the state. Governor Pataki was very pleased Read More

Read article By JACOB GERSHMAN Dozens of bills making retirement benefits more generous for a wide range of public employees are awaiting Governor Pataki's signature or veto. If signed into law, the expanded benefits would cost taxpayers mo Read More

Read article Governor Pataki is expected today to veto legislation that would significantly weaken the leverage of municipal governments and school districts over public unions during contract negotiations. Among the dozens of vetoes that the Read More

Read article ALBANY - Senate Republicans are secretly doling out tens of millions of dollars in education funds on pet projects arranged by individual lawmakers around the state, a Times Union investigation has found. The money has a name befi Read More

With the state and New York City on a collision course over how to resolve the long-running Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit ordering $23 billion in additional funds for the city's public schools, some budget experts are suggesting a deal. Read More

New York City is abandoned. That was the scene on Mercer Street one day last week on the shoot of "I Am Legend," a sci-fi thriller featuring Will Smith as the last human in New York City after a flu epidemic transforms the infected into creatures Read More

Whoever wins today's governor's race, Eliot Spitzer or John Faso, will be taking over a state at a critical juncture. Even after a recovery from the 2001 recession, New York is hemorrhaging jobs, facing a multibillion-dollar budget gap, and losing it Read More