What's the legal and historical background of Governor Cuomo's plan to issue a new generation of New York license plates carrying a mandatory fee of $25 per set? Read More
Research
The Cuomo administration appears to have violated state law by forcing offshore wind developers to cut deals with the building trade unions that supported his 2018 re-election bid, needlessly inflating costs and boxing out subcontractors on multi-billion dollar construction jobs. Read More
Governor Cuomo’s license plate design contest was a PR ploy masking a nickel-and-dime revenue raiser. Read More
Compare the average salaries and head-counts of county and municipal government employees across New York State. Read More
One of New York’s largest public-sector unions is deliberately trying to shed some dues-paying members. The union in question wants to avoid transparency and accountability for how it spends dues money. And unless state lawmakers or federal regulators act, they’ll succeed. Read More
The newly posted July cash report from the comptroller's office shows that state-funded Medicaid expenditures ran over budget projections by $665 million, or almost 8 percent, through the first four months of the fiscal year. If that pattern continues, the full-year overage would approach $2 billion. Read More
State-regulated health premiums for 2020 are rising faster than the medical inflation rate for the sixth year in a row, yet the officials who signed off on the hikes insist they have saved consumers money – because average premiums are lower than what insurers originally requested. Positive spin notwithstanding, it's increasingly evident that the state's nine-year-old price-control regime, known as "prior approval," is failing as a strategy to keep health costs in check. Read More
The Cuomo administration's quarterly budget update includes a warning for the state's health-care industry: Medicaid cuts could be coming. The report, released Tuesday, says officials are developing a plan to reduce Medicaid spending that could include "across-the-board rate reductions to health care providers and plans." Read More
New York's employer-sponsored health insurance premiums – which were already among the steepest in the mainland United States – rose faster than the national average in 2018, pushing the state's affordability gap to new heights. Read More
New York City's five municipal public pension funds ended their 2019 fiscal year with an aggregate investment gain of 7.24 percent, slightly above their 7 percent assumed rate of return, according to a preliminary estimate by city comptroller's office. Read More
Last week’s surprise resignation of the state education commissioner, MaryEllen Elia, leaves New York schools at a crossroads. Depending on whom the Board of Regents selects to succeed Elia, the commissioner can serve as a force for reform or for preserving a troubled status quo. Read More
New York's offshore wind project will demand massive subsidies—ultimately billed to ratepayers. Read More