State leaders have seized the opportunity presented by the unprecedented budget deficit to implement long-term solutions that will help restore the State’s fiscal strength. While the budget negotiations signaled a change in Albany’s working dynamics, some old habits die hard; indeed, some just won’t die at all.
Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposals to cap property taxes and reduce education aid mean that New York State’s 676 school districts will need to manage with fewer resources; their biggest challenge is to reduce spending without hurting services for the more than 2.7 million public school children.
As New York’s elected officials consider options for balancing budgets in the face of record deficits, they should be attuned to opportunities for cost-savings in all areas, no matter how big or small. One approach for identifying potential savings is examining practices in which New York State and its local governments are out of line with their peers.
Pension contributions this year will cost the state government alone $1.7 billion in fiscal year 2010-11 -- an amount already set to grow 85 percent, to $3.2 billion, by 2014. How much higher must it go before the Legislature puts the taxpayers ahead of special interests?
While the State and local governments struggle to pay for current salaries and fringe benefits of public employees and to fully fund the pension system for retirees - resorting to a "borrowing" scheme to stretch out required payments - the State Legislature has remained undeterred in intro
This op-ed explains that the state can no longer tax and borrow its way out of the current economic crisis and remain competitive as a place to live, work and do business. Spending cuts are required, and they won't be easy.
This letter from the CBC outlines a new fiscal strategy that would address the structural imbalance in the City's budget for fiscal year 2010. The key elements of the new fiscal strategy should be: 1) no new or higher taxes that harm prospects for economic recovery and growth; 2) reduce operating expenditures in ways that lower the cost of producing services rather than the availability o
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