Upstate New York ratepayers will pick up more than half the multi-billion-dollar tab for a massive offshore wind turbine project that will provide very costly power for Long Island and New York City. Read More
Research
The overarching scandal here wasn’t bid-rigging or the pay-to-play pattern in the developers’ contributions to the governor’s reelection campaign. At the root was a simply awful public policy — corporate welfare on steroids — that neither Cuomo nor most of his critics have definitively renounced, even now. Read More
The state's Essential Plan has amassed a nine-figure surplus due to unexpectedly generous federal funding, records from the Office of the State Comptroller show. Read More
The Trump administration’s move this week to suspend the Affordable Care Act’s “risk adjustment” program leaves more than $300 million in payments to and from New York’s health plans in limbo and further destabilizes the state’s ACA market. Read More
This issue brief explores the financial considerations and policy challenges associated with eliminating the local Medicaid share and reviews the options for implementing a state takeover. Read More
Governor Cuomo frequently asserts that his policies have ignited an economic turnaround in upstate New York, and he's been known to cherry-pick numbers to back himself up. He was at it again during a swing through the Mohawk Valley earlier this week—and, once again, the statistical cherries were in bloom. Read More
A senior member of the state Assembly is already promising to introduce legislation that would effectively use taxpayer money to reimburse government unions for the “agency fees” they are no longer allowed to collect under last week’s SCOTUS decision in Janus v. AFSCME. Read More
New York pushes more of its Medicaid expenses onto local government than any other state — an almost $8 billion cost-shift that contributes to high property taxes from Montauk to Niagara Falls. Read More
This week’s US Supreme Court ruling in Janus v. AFSCME was not unexpected — and neither was the agitated, high-volume reaction from Gov. Cuomo and the public-sector union bosses who are his strongest political allies. Read More
What does the Janus ruling mean for the fiscal future of the Empire State, home of the country’s most unionized public sector? It depends, as always, on our elected officials. Read More
As of yesterday, New York’s government employers can no longer deduct dues-like “agency fees” from government employees who haven’t joined a union, even if the union involved has a contract requiring them. Read More
Thirteen out of 16 New York school districts whose budgets were rejected by voters on May 15 were approved in re-votes held yesterday. Read More