Today's from Governor Paterson's office says the governor's proposed pension changes for new newly hired employees will save $60 billion over 30 years. But here's the missing perspective: for state government, the modest changes proposed by Paterso Read More
Governor Paterson's includes a $300 million raid on the coffers of the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA), which would be required to issue new bonds and send the proceeds to Albany. But BPCA board member Charles Urstadt and former authority spok Read More
By lifting its cap on charter schools and allowing test score gains to be considered in teacher evaluations, New York State could ultimately grab a share of the federal government's $4 billion in "Race to the Top" funding for educational improvement. Read More
Well, better late than never. But given in New York, Governor Paterson's may be a day late and a dollar short. Make that a billion. Just a day after state Comptroller DiNapoli in support of his own plausible estimate that the 2009-10 budget Read More
That phrase is used in the headline of today's (as yet unposted) press release from the office of state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, whose for the month of September highlights the same growing deficit spotlighted by the state tax department collect Read More
New York State's tax receipts were down 7.7 percent in September compared to the same month in 2008, according to from the state Department of Taxation and Finance. In virtually every major category, the tax numbers were below the trends forecas Read More
Governor Paterson today that he was ordering state agencies to cut their budgets by $500 million to help in dealing with a current-year state deficit of between $2.1 billion (the official forecast as of late July) and $3 billion (the governor's own Read More
The Transport Workers Union (TWU) local 100, which represents most Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) union workers in the city, has launched a "no contract, no peace" effort to push the MTA into dropping its lawsuit against the state's re Read More