Bills designed to block any change to retiree health coverage for state and local public employees have been introduced repeatedly by legislators in both parties over the past 30 years. But the latest statewide “anti-diminution” measure, inspired by an ongoing controversy in New York City, would be the broadest and most costly yet—and more than two-thirds of state lawmakers are supporting it. Read More
A money-saving maneuver in the newly enacted Medicaid budget could end up increasing costs in the long term – by paving the way for more unionization of the state's burgeoning home health workforce. Read More
Filling in more details of New York's ongoing demographic decline, the Census Bureau has just released updated local population estimates showing that 80 percent of the state's towns and cities have lost residents since 2020. In addition to New Yo Read More
School districts presenting budgets to voters next Tuesday plan to spend an average of $33,404 per student, up 4.4 percent from the current school year, according to new state data. Read More
After rising sharply with an extra push from the inflation surge of 2022, sales tax receipts in New York grew much more slowly during the first four months of this year, according to from state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli's office. Statewide sale Read More
The rule of law scored a victory yesterday when a proposition to amend the equal rights provision of the state Constitution got knocked off this fall’s general election ballot. Read More
The cancellation of planned offshore wind projects has sparked considerable heartburn and hand-wringing among lawmakers, activists and politically wired businesses and unions, but it’s been good news for the upstate families and businesses who would be paying more than half the cost. For them, each year of delays on scotched projects amounts to future electric-bill savings of upwards of $1 billion—and gives Albany another chance to find a better, less expensive way to go green. Read More
Lawmakers are taking victory laps over language in the state budget related to "squatters" but the change hasn't given property owners any rights or options they didn't already have. Read More
The growth of New York's Medicaid spending is projected to slow but not stop as Governor Hochul and the Legislature effectively split their differences over health care in the newly enacted state budget. Read More
Public elementary and secondary school spending in New York hit a new record high of $29,873 per pupil in 2021-22, according to the Census Bureau's latest annual school finance data—inching closer to fully twice the national average amid a significant post-pandemic decline in pupil performance. Read More
The newly enacted state budget imposes a multibillion-dollar tax on health insurance without specifying who must pay how much – leaving those basic details to be decided later by the health commissioner in negotiatio Read More
Amid all the bipartisan noise, however, most Empire State tax filers may have noticed something interesting: their federal tax bills haven’t changed much at all. Even in highly taxed New York suburbs, most home-owning families with children are feeling a smaller federal tax bite. Read More