Per-pupil spending in the 669 school districts outside New York’s five largest cities will climb next year by 2.5 percent, nearly twice the projected inflation rate, according to an analysis released today by the Empire Center for Public Policy. The analysis indicates that school districts' per-pupil property tax levies will increase by 2.1 percent in 2015-16. Read More
Well, wouldn’t you know it. The biggest winners in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s tax-freeze program are homeowners in Scarsdale, the Lower Hudson Valley’s richest municipality, who received the highest average checks statewide in the first year of the property-tax rebate program. Read More
Municipalities are not required by law to maintain websites. They come with a cost, they need to be maintained and they require a certain amount of in-house computer savvy to keep current. Nevertheless, good websites should be part of every municipal package because their value to taxpayers is well worth the effort. Several area municipalities took that seriously after receiving a failing grade last November when the Empire Center for Public Policy released a SeeThroughNY Website Report Card on municipal websites. The center examined 500 websites for contact information, spending date, labor contracts and public meeting records, and the ease of locating those items, and graded them accordingly. Read More
Should New York State do more to help Western New York deal with the growing tax burden? Read More
In the digital age, government should be more open than ever. Unfortunately, it isn't. Read More
Good news to cap off Sunshine Week: at least some local government and school officials are working to make their websites more useful and informative. Read More
If you could vote to reduce your taxes by about 25 percent, but doing so meant you would be responsible for almost doubling what your neighbor pays, what would you choose? Read More
This fall, the Empire Center for Public Policy released its first evaluation of websites for the state’s 500 largest counties, municipalities, and school districts — and gave 85 percent of them failing grades. In the Enterprise coverage area, three were evaluated: The county of Albany and the town of Guilderland both got Fs while the Guilderland Central School District earned a C. Read More