#NYCoronavirus: Tightening eligibility for Medicaid home care and implementing a further across-the board rate reduction are among 41 cost-cutting measures being contemplated by Governor Cuomo's Medicaid Redesign Team, according to a draft executive summary obtained by the Empire Center. Read More
#NYCoronavirus: Thanks to the coronavirus emergency, New York State tax revenues in the coming fiscal year will be $4 billion to $7 billion lower than projected, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli estimates. Read More
With any luck, the coronavirus will be a fading memory by summer. But by then, massive (if temporary) damage will already have been done to the state and regional economies. The Empire State and its local governments, including Gotham, will have to confront a fiscal crisis as intense as the current public-health emergency. Read More
#NYCoronavirus: As they struggle to contain the coronavirus outbreak on the eve of their budget deadline, the state's elected leaders have run out of good options for dealing with Medicaid. Read More
Barely one in five private construction workers in New York State was covered by a union contract last year, according to newly released statistics that call into question a state public works "prevailing wage" mandate that assumes 30 percent union coverage of building trades occupations across New York. Read More
Faced with a $2.5 billion deficit in the Medicaid budget, Governor Andrew Cuomo has floated the idea of closing the gap in part with “additional industry revenue.” This raises concern that lawmakers will again hike New York’s already heavy taxes on health insurance – and deepen the state’s addiction to an unhealthy source of revenue. Read More
#NYCoronaVirus: Not a moment too soon, Governor Cuomo finally has acknowledging that a near-panic in financial markets amid rising fears of a global economic slowdown should prompt a re-set in the state's revenue forecast for the fiscal year that begins April 1, less than three weeks from now. Read More
For the third time in three years, health-care interests are airing TV ads favorable to Governor Cuomo in the thick of high-stakes negotiations over Medicaid funding. Read More
For decades, "Kill Urstadt!" was the rallying cry of New York City tenant activists and their political allies favoring more stringent rent control. The slogan referred to chapter 372 of the Laws of 1971, better known as the Urstadt Law, through which Albany barred the city from adopting rent limitations that are “more stringent or restrictive than those presently in effect.” Urstadt, who died this week at 92, was proud of the rent deregulation policies that made his surname an epithet in some quarters— and bemused to have been targeted for decades by calls for his (figurative) demise. Read More
A splinter group of Rochester teachers is threatening to stage a wildcat strike tomorrow, and the response from the school district, the teachers' union and state public-sector labor regulators could decide whether other New York districts face similar threats. Read More
#NYCoronavirus: "Hope for the best and prepare for the worst" is a favorite saying of Governor Cuomo, who has rolled it out again to describe how the state will deal with the coronavirus. But when it comes to the next state budget, Cuomo is hoping for better and preparing for more of the same. Read More
#NYCoronavirus: Amid growing fears that a coronavirus pandemic will severely disrupt the global economy, and with the stock market heading for its biggest weekly losses since the 2008 financial crisis, Governor Cuomo has been oddly quiet about the obvious budget implications. Read More