Nassau County is one step closer to having a state board take control of its long-troubled finances. Yet instead of proposing realistic solutions to fix things -- i.e., cutting spending -- County Executive Ed Mangano is threatening to sue the boar Read More
As a taxpayer, Dominic Ciaramella is strongly in favor of the 2-percent property tax cap that was a cornerstone of Andrew Cuomo's campaign for governor. "You've got to stop the process of taxes going higher and higher and higher - and who's giving Read More
When Andrew Cuomo becomes Governor Saturday, he faces some huge challenges, including a $10 billion dollar deficit. Cuomo already faces a formidable challenge of closing the multi billion dollar budget gap, but he's upped the ante by promising to Read More
When Todd Rouse became mayor of Canastota in 2001, the village paid $14,203 into the state retirement fund for all of its employees. This year, the bill is $131,000. It’s projected to rise to about $184,000 in 2012 — more than 10 percent of the v Read More
New York City sanitation bosses think they've got it so bad that they intentionally delayed snow-removal, according to the NY Post. So how bad have they got it? City workers enjoyed steady employment through the recession, killer benefits and a Read More
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said he's "unequivocally" opposed to resurrecting a stock-transfer tax as a way of reducing the state's deficit, rejecting calls by labor leaders to force Wall Street to bail out Albany. Mr. Silver, in an interview, Read More
THREE YEARS AFTER the stock market cratered in 1929, American schools suffered their own crash. School districts had managed to ride out the early years of the Great Depression; in fact, because many districts depended on property taxes, which didn� Read More
This much we know: New York's public pension system, with its exorbitant defined benefits, must be radically changed or it will bankrupt us. Over the next five years, the tax-funded annual contributions to the Teachers' Retirement System will more th Read More