Budget

Keeping Watch for Local Government Fiscal Stress

December 2, 2012 Accounting

New York’s Comptroller, Tom DiNapoli has issued a draft proposal for identifying local governments at risk of fiscal stress. An earlier report touches on local fiscal distress. And here, former Assemblyman Richard Brodsky discusses the earlier Comptroller’s report. It’s a good idea, and given the local governments that have already gotten themselves in trouble the […]

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Unfunded Mandate? A Bad Idea Unless We Should Do That Ourselves

November 30, 2012 Budget

Of late, I’ve been trying to avoid Albany County issues. But sometimes, you just can’t. We’re now looking at a backdoor property tax increase by Albany County – and even with that, the County would not be able to stay within the property tax cap. The latest is that a group of Democrats are withholding […]

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Albany County: Working Hard to Make it Harder for the Public to Understand its Budget

November 3, 2012 Budget

The past several years, Albany County made its tentative (proposed) budget available online, not only in a readable format (PDF), but in a format (Excel) that the public and occasional legislators could actually do calculations with. No more. When the County Executive’s Tentative Budget was released last month, the PDF documents were posted online, but […]

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Nassau and Suffolk County 2013 Tentative Budgets

September 26, 2012 Budget

Report that budgets for Nassau and Suffolk Counties in NY have been released. Nassau has no property tax increase. Suffolk’s is reported to be under the property tax cap. More later.

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More on, and a Possible Correction on IGT

June 7, 2012 Budget

Last week, we noted that the Federal government wants some of its IGT money back. I’m not, not, not going to try to explain how this program works or why and how counties put up $.50 on one day and the next day their nursing homes get back $1.00. But during the recession, counties only […]

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Other NYS County Nursing Homes Being Sold

June 6, 2012 Budget

Despite intense objections, the Essex County, NY Board of Supervisors has voted 12-6 to sell its nursing home, Horace Nye. The 100 bed facility loses about $2 million per year. The sale price is $4.05 million. Essex County is also seeking an increase in its sales tax rate (from 3.75 to 4.0 percent). Mere coincidence? […]

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Chronically Confident Calculations

May 29, 2012 Budget

In Bias in Government Forecasts, Jeffrey Frankel, an economist at Harvard’s Kennedy School asks the question, “Why do so many countries so often wander far off the path of fiscal responsibility?” In his the full paper at the Oxford Review of Economic Policy Frankel details how national governments (with very rare exceptions) propose consistently optimistic […]

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Oh, Maybe You Can Have That Revenue After All … For Now

May 16, 2012 Budget

For the past couple years, Albany County Legislators have been talking about keeping a much larger share of sales tax revenue for their own purposes and reducing the share passed on to cities, towns and villages. Many of those Legislators have such a proprietary sense of it that they call it “our money,” as if […]

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RFP for Sale (or Something) of Albany County Nursing Home

April 20, 2012 Budget

Though you’ll have to register, the request for proposals is available here. The process is being handled through the County’s Purchasing Department. Summary: As Albany County government explores options for the future of its county-operated nursing home, the County is seeking proposals from interested parties that would reduce or eliminate the nursing home’s dependence upon […]

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Doubling Down on Public Pension Investments

April 2, 2012 Budget

Pension costs going up faster than revenue? You have three choices: Raise taxes, cut spending on other items and pay more into your pension reserve. Those are certainly not politically attractive options, but as often as not, these are the options for grown-ups. Reduce pension liabilities by reducing pensions promised. These are politically ugly options, […]

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