The ink was barely dry on Governor Andrew Cuomo’s local government “restructuring” bill yesterday when the governor made two more concessions to unions on the issue of binding arbitration. Read More
Research
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. Read More
The New York State Professional Firefighters Association (PFFA) was not at all pleased by the Empire Center’s news release last week highlighting the generous pensions of recently retired local police and firefighters. Read More
New York's mayoral candidates have paid surprisingly little attention to one issue that really sets the Big Apple apart: an extraordinarily heavy tax burden. No other big city in the country imposes such a broad array of taxes at such high levels, piling its own levies on top of those collected by Albany. For example, corporations pay a combined rate of 17.5 percent on net income allocated to New York City, roughly double the average in most of the country. At the same time, the city's property tax is engineered to fall most heavily on commercial property and apartment buildings -- contributing to sky-high rents in both categories... Read More
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said that his proposal to allow up to three casinos in upstate New York will "create thousands of new jobs where they are needed most." Now comes the small print: it turns out those jobs will be controlled mainly by the state's politically powerful labor unions, whose support the governor presumably is courting for the constitutional amendment that voters will be asked to approve this fall to legalize casino gambling on a broader scale. Read More
Governor Andrew Cuomo says his proposal to allow up to three casinos in upstate New York will “create thousands of new jobs where they are needed most.” Now comes the small print: it turns out those jobs will be controlled mainly by organized labor, whose support the governor presumably is courting for a needed constitutional amendment to legalize casino gambling on a broader scale. Read More
Under ObamaCare, the promise ran, if you have coverage you like, you’ll be able to keep it. That turned out, of course, to be untrue. Now everyone from businesses to unions is scrambling to find a survival strategy before the law’s implementation come January. Read More
When a government watchdog as knowledgeable as Steven Greenhut, a Bloomberg View contributor, writes that California deserves to knock New York out of last place in rankings of state business climates, it’s tempting to agree. If only he had a stronger case. 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 promoting his twin panaceas for the upstate economy—casino gambling and tax-free zones on college and university campuses—Governor Andrew Cuomo hasn’t minced words about the region’s mediocre economic performance. “We’re on the third generation of people giving the speech and writing the story” of upstate’s decline, he said at one recent news conference. Read More
New York’s economy grew at barely half the rate for all 50 states in 2012, according to newly released federal data. The Empire State’s share of real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was up 1.3 percent last year, compared to 2.5 percent for all states (and 1.5 percent for the northeast as a whole). Read More
New York’s economy grew at barely half the rate for all 50 states in 2012, according to newly released federal data. The Empire State’s share of real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was up 1.3 percent last year, compared to 2.5 percent for all states (and 1.5 percent for the northeast as a whole). Read More