New York State’s $1 billion capital project slush fund is dispensing borrowed money across the state outside public scrutiny, but two local governments have inadvertently given New Yorkers a glimpse of its inner workings.
The Cuomo administration and the state Legislature have begun dishing out grants from a secretive $1.1 billion capital slush fund—all of which will be borrowed money—with no disclosure of project sponsorship or award criteria.
If you’ve spent any time at a little league baseball or soccer game, or any children's sporting event, you know the cry of "hustle up" means move faster. It’s a way adults try to keep the game moving—and remind the players of what they ought to be doing.
Governor Andrew Cuomo eliminated funding of new "member item" spending when he took office four years ago—but the Ghost of Pork Barrels Past continues to haunt the state's finances.
Each of Cuomo's first four Executive Budget proposals projected the depletion and elimination of what's technically known as the "Community Projects Fund - 007" -- but every year, the enacted budget has restored the money to back up reappropriations of the member item lump sum.
Major residential, commercial and industrial developments throughout the country are subject to an array of federal and state laws designed to protect the environment, buttressed nearly everywhere by local land-use regulations addressing the community impacts of such projects.
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.
Governor Andrew Cuomo has pulled the teeth out of his original proposal to reform the binding arbitration law for police and fire contract disputes, squandering an opportunity to deliver on a key mandate relief priority for many municipalities.
For nearly 40 years, unions representing police and firefighters in New York State have been entitled to seek compulsory binding “interest arbitration” of contract impasses, a form of dispute resolution not available to most public employees outside the public safety field.
Based on their just-introduced one-house budget, Assembly Democrats don’t support Governor Cuomo’s proposal to eliminate all required reports by local governments and school districts to state agencies. From a transparency and accountability standpoint, that’s good news for taxpayers and the general public, as explained here.
