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
Don’t look now, but the Legislature is a step away from passing a straight four-year extension of the Taylor Law’s police and binding arbitration provision, which is due to sunset June 30. The Senate extender bill (sponsored by Martin Golden, R-Brooklyn) was reported out of the Civil Service and Pensions Committee last week and advanced to third reading on the floor calendar this week. Read More
In a classic end-of-session rush job, the Assembly and Senate last week passed a bill that will make it easier to sue New York State’s local governments. Read More
Democratic Queens Assemblyman William Scarborough, whose offices in Albany and Queens were raided he says over questions stemming from his travel expenses, received $32,492 in voucher reimbursements over a 12-month period. Read More
As the clock ticks down towards Thursday’s adjournment of the state Legislature, Senate Republican leaders apparently are blocking a vote on a bill designed to ensure that the names of New York’s public pension recipients are (once again) unequivocally treated as public information. Read More
Thanks to a last-minute bill language tweak sought by police and firefighter unions, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s watered-down “reform” of New York’s compulsory arbitration law will not apply to a number of unsettled contracts that hadn’t even reached the arbitration stage before the law was extended just before the Legislature adjourned last month. Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) records now indicate that up to two dozen contract disputes may have been carved out of the new law (Ch. 67 of 2013), with the full impact ultimately depending on how many of these employers are considered fiscally distressed enough to otherwise qualify. Read More
Over at SeeThroughNY, our team works really hard to post fresh data quickly and accurately — when it’s available, that is. Read More
New York’s State Senate spent almost $45 million during the six-month period ending last September, according to the latest data available at SeeThroughNY, where the Empire Center for Public Policy maintains public records dating back to 2007. Read More