Governor Cuomo’s proposal to cap arbitration awards for police and firefighters is not included in the Senate or Assembly budget bills. This may be blessing in disguise: as argued here, Cuomo’s original proposal didn’t go nearly far enough. Since the arbitration law expires on June 30, the governor remains in a commanding position to demand more. Read More
Tag: Andrew Cuomo
The slow-motion process of developing state regulations to allow natural gas hydro-fracking in upstate New York seems to have reached stall speed, now that Governor Andrew Cuomo has ordered up a new health impact review that could force the Department of Environmental Conservation to miss a Nov. 29 deadline for issuing fracking rules. Read More
Working added overtime to increase retirement benefits—i.e., pension padding or “spiking”—is an old tradition in the public sector, especially among police officers, firefighters and other employees working under contracts that provide them with ample overtime opportunities. Read More
New York’s rising unemployment rate is “presenting a challenge for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo as he tries to build an image as a fiscal centrist who can transform the state’s business climate,” today’s New York Times reports. Read More
Unlike state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, who says he’s still thinking it over, one upstate local official has already concluded that Governor Cuomo’s local government pension smoothingproposal would be a bad deal. Read More
In lieu of actual mandate relief, Governor Cuomo wants to make a seemingly irresistible offer to local governments. Read More
The one promising new wrinkle in the upstate economic development plan unveiled today by Governor Andrew Cuomo is the offer of full (if impermanent) exemptions from state business and personal income taxes, as well as sales taxes, to firms that expand into designated Tax Free Zones at colleges, universities and “strategically located state-owned” properties. Read More
The report of Governor Cuomo’s Tax Reform and Fairness Commission is a useful, well researched collection of interesting and provocative ideas — some much better than others. Not a bad place to start a further exchange of ideas leading to a fruitful debate on the topic, assuming such a thing is possible in Albany. Read More