Today is full of bad news for Wall Street. The New York Times reports that the street is moving mid-paying jobs to middle America, and S&P has a new report out saying that the i-banking business is moving to a "less profitable, but somewhat lower risk, business model." 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
Seventeen years ago, the state Court of Appeals ruled that New York State has a constitutional obligation to ensure that public schools provide all students with a "sound basic education." Read More
Earlier today, the Supreme Court, after signaling numerous concerns with ObamaCare during oral arguments, reversed course and upheld the law basically in its entirety by a vote of 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts providing the swing vote. Read More
New York is probably less affected than most states by today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision. The court effectively has said that almost all of Affordable Care Act (ACA) passes constitutional muster. This means the entire country can now experience the effects of the sort of regulatory policies (such as guaranteed issue, community rating and mandated coverages) that have done much to make health insurance so costly here... Read More
The Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) litigation of 1993-2006 established the principle that New York State is constitutionally obligated to ensure funding of a “sound, basic education” for pupils in New York City schools. Today, the state’s highest court cleared the way for a lawsuit claiming that funding levels for about a dozen of New York’s small city school districts doesn’t meet that requirement. Read More
How does Governor Cuomo intend to pay for a new Tappan Zee Bridge? Nicole Gelinas explores that question in an op-ed in today’s New York Post. Taking a closer look at cross-Hudson traffic trends, she suggests that higher bridge tolls alone aren’t unlikely to cover it. Read More
In its look-back today on Governor Andrew Cuomo’s second legislative session, The New York Times quotes the governor as saying he had “front-loaded” the legislative calendar... Read More
In a news conference just before yesterday’s legislative adjournment, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that he would grant the required “messages of necessity” to pave the way for a vote on amended versions of two New York City bills — one related to condo-coop tax abatements, and the other to a measure implementing an important technical change in actuarial assumptions for the New York City pension funds. Read More
Sometime this summer, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo will perform the financial equivalent of pulling a rabbit out of his hat -- explaining how a cash-poor, heavily indebted state government (and its Thruway Authority, whose credit rating outlook was just downgraded to "negative") will come up with $5 billion to $6 billion to build a new bridge across the widest stretch of the lower Hudson River. Read More
The small Hudson Valley city of Poughkeepsie is now home to some of the best-paying summer jobs ever: $51.71 an hour. That’s right: $51.71 an hour. Read More
Just two school districts -- out of nearly 700 in New York -- will be limited to the new zero-tax hike contingency budget provision of the state's new property tax cap law next year. Read More