Governor Cuomo’s 2012-13 budget, to be presented later today, will command media attention for the rest of the week. Advance reports on his modified pension reform proposal are especially promising. Meanwhile, there’s a (fiscally) cost-free approach to helping local governments and school districts alleviate their budget problems: repealing the Triborough Amendment.
Bill Hammond of the New York Daily News highlights the issue today in the context of his column today commending the governor’s use of the budget to force stronger teacher evaluation standards.
Why are school property taxes so high across the state? Partly because local officials’ hands are tied when it comes to squeezing concessions out of unions.
Repealing the Triborough Amendment would go a long way toward turning those situations around.
And it wouldn’t come close to Wisconsin-style union-busting, since this law exists in no other state and would never fly in the private sector.
Repeal is a top priority for the Conference of Mayors, the Association of Counties and other groups pushing for mandate relief so local governments can comply with Cuomo’s much-needed property tax cap.
Oddly, the governor himself has shied from making this issue part of his agenda. Maybe he’s calculating that it would never pass the union-friendly Legislature.
That’s the wrong call. Cuomo has built up extraordinary political capital, as his 73% approval rating in Monday’s Siena College poll shows.
He should spend a little of that capital on fixing Triborough.
Rob Astorino, the Westchester county executive, sounds off on Triborough in the New York Post:
[W]hen I call for reform of the Triborough Amendment, my position is not anti-union, it’s pro-job preservation. I am a union member and supporter of collective bargaining. I’m also extremely proud of our county workers and the quality service they deliver. But we’ve reached the point where if the union workers keep on growing more expensive, we’ll simply have to have fewer of them.
And the Empire Center’s own Rus Sykes lays out the case against Triborough in today’s Buffalo News.
You may also like
Budget Update Paints Less Alarming Picture of Federal Health Cuts
A new fiscal report from the state Budget Division suggests federal funding cuts will hit New York's health-care budget less severely than officials have previously warned.
A relea Read More
Parsing the Impact of Mamdani’s Tax Hike Plans
The front-running candidate for New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has said he can finance his costly campaign promises – including free buses and universal child care – by taxing only a sliver of the city's residents Read More
Why New York’s Health Premiums Keep Going Up
New Yorkers continue to face some of the costliest health premiums in the U.S., and the insurance industry's recently finalized rate applications shed light on why that is.
In summa Read More
How Immigrants Became a Cash Cow for New York’s Essential Plan
The Hochul administration's move to shrink the Essential Plan in response to federal budget cuts has exposed a surprising reality:
For the past decade, immigrants have been a cash c Read More
How Washington’s Budget Bill Will Affect Health Care in New York
UPDATE: The final version of the federal budget bill omitted a handful of provisions that had been included in earlier drafts. One would have penalized states that use their own money to provide coverage for undocumente Read More
Two Dozen School Districts Are Returning to the Polls for Budget Revotes
Voters in 24 New York school districts return to the polls on Tuesday for school budget revotes. Last month, voters in 96 percent of school districts outside New York City conducting votes approved their school budgets for the upcoming year.
The 683 sc Read More
Even With Federal Cuts, New York’s Health Funding Would Remain High
New York's health-care industry stands to lose billions of dollars in federal funding under the major budget bill being debated in Washington – a rare and jarring turn of events for a sector accustomed to steadily increas Read More
Highlights of Albany’s Bloated and Belated Budget
The state Legislature approved the last of nine budget bills Thursday evening, 38 days after the start of the fiscal year. Here are some highlights of the fiscal impact of final spending plan:
Top lines
Read More