Reports

New York State government payrolls shrunk by 1,856 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees, or less than one percent, during a two-year period ending in January 2010, according to the latest data from the Office of the State Comptroller. However, the state still employed more workers than it did at the same point six years ago, in the wake of a less severe economic downturn and fiscal crisis. Read More

The Empire State is being drained of an invaluable resource—people. From 2000 to 2008, in both absolute and relative terms, New York experienced the nation’s largest loss of residents to other states—a net domestic migration outflow of over 1.5 million, or 8 percent of its population at the start of the decade. Read More

Almost all of the projected $2.1 billion deficit in this year’s New York State budget can be traced to falling tax receipts. But rising spending will represent a growing share of the problem over the next three years. In fact, more than one-third of the projected growth in next year’s gap, and over half the growth in the gap for fiscal 2013, can be traced to spending increases beyond those forecast by the Division of the Budget (DOB) in April. Read More

New York State residents pay some of the highest local taxes in the nation. Until now, however, New Yorkers have had no easy way to compare basic fiscal measures for the local governments that account for a large share of the taxes they pay. Read More

The “people’s right to know” is a hollow concept when government can withhold vital information until it is too late for the people’s voice to be heard. Read More

This report reviews the impact of federal tax cuts on New York State since 2001 and looks at how the Empire State would be affected by the sharply divergent tax policy agendas of the 2008 presidential candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama. Estimates are provided for the direct New York impact of the candidates’ principal individual income tax proposals over the next two years. Read More

Spitzer’s expansion of education funding and restructuring of the school aid formula may be his most important legacy. Unfortunately, C4E has been seriously hobbled by flaws in its assumptions about the mechanisms of reform, by misguided beliefs about “what works” in achieving excellence, and by a compressed timeline for adoption and implementation. Read More