The days leading up to the presentation of New York State's Executive Budget are traditionally used by the governor's office to leak selected details from the coming proposal. Andrew Cuomo, however, is breaking the mold. Last Friday -- Budget D-Day minus... Read More
As states struggle with enormous deficits and exploding pension costs, some analysts are urging Congress to enact a law enabling states to declare bankruptcy the way municipalities can under Chapter 9 of the federal bankruptcy code. Read More
Pension reform is now New York City's "No. 1 priority in Albany," Mayor Bloomberg announced in his State of the City message this week. Read More
Governor Cuomo says the state of Wisconsin is the model for his unusual collaborative approach to attempting to reduce Medicaid costs in New York -- but a report in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) cites "little evidence of savings"... Read More
Andrew Cuomo’s unorthodox State of the State presentation this week highlighted a disparity between his muscular rhetoric and his (so far) cautious approach to governing. Read More
In his compelling inaugural speech on New Year’s Day, Gov. Cuomo embraced “a very specific mandate for change that the people want.” Read More
Following up on a campaign promise, Gov. Andrew Cuomo is saying he will freeze the salaries of state government workers for a year. Is this a big deal? No. I explain why in this post at the Manhattan Institute's new website, www.PublicSectorInc.org. Read More
The looming state budget gap, which could easily exceed $10 billion, is the most obvious and immediate challenge facing Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Read More
Defenders of public employee pension systems often make the case that pension benefits are not all that generous. The outrageous cases you see on the news — Long Island police retiring in their 40s with pensions in excess of base pay, administrators “retiring” with six-figure pensions and then going back to work with another government agency, one ex-FDNY firefighter running marathons on his $86,000 “disability” pension — are the exceptions, they say. Read More
In November 2003, the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research issued a report describing New York state’s public-pension system as “a ticking fiscal time bomb. Read More
Taxpayer-funded employer contributions to public pensions in New York State will rise by billions of dollars in the next few years, threatening to divert scarce resources from other essential public services in the midst of a fiscal crisis, according to a new report from the Empire Center for Public Policy. Read More
Public pension costs in New York are mushrooming—just when taxpayers can least afford it. Over the next five years, tax-funded annual contributions to the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System (NYSTRS) will more than quadruple, while contributions to the New York State and Local Retirement System (NYSLRS) will more than double, according to estimates presented in this report. Read More