Local Government

Congratulations to the Town of Brookhaven, NY

June 19, 2018 Administration

Congratulations to the Town of Brookhaven, NY, to Supervisor Ed Romaine, and to the elected and staff leadership of local villages and participating school districts for winning New York’s first Municipal Consolidation and Efficiency Competition (MCEC). Here’s the Governor’s announcement of the winner In New York’s municipal sector, this was an unusual competition in that […]

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Gambling for Economic Development is High Risk

April 13, 2016 Cities

Gambling is intrinsically a zero-sum game. Though there may be locally, in the aggregate, there’s no economic multiplier. So it’s never made sense to me as a viable strategy for economic development. At best, it’s a break-even. And, the odds are that, it simply transfers money from one region to another, mostly from poor to […]

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Property Taxes in New York, Outside NYC

January 21, 2015 Economics

Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York in his combined State of the State and Budget Address, January 21, 2015. “When people complain about high taxes in New York, they’re talking about the property tax.” OK, how much, for what and where? Mostly schools and secondarily counties. These data are for over 3,200 local governments outside […]

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The Rising Cost of Ignorance in Local Government Finance

February 5, 2014 Bond Rating

And here’s a really nice summary by Liz Farmer of why the cost of ignorance is rising in local government finance: Financial Illiteracy: One of Government’s Biggest and Least Discussed Problems. Yes, it’s more eat your fruits and vegetables stuff but … Don’t be surprised, as some have been even when their actions are legal, […]

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Reducing Ignorance in Local Government Finance

February 5, 2014 Bond Rating

From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Budgeting for the Future: Fiscal Planning Tools Can Show the Way (PDF), by Elizabeth C McNichol, Vincent Palacios, and Nicholas Johnson. Ten tools: Multi-Year Forecasts of Revenues and Spending Fiscal Notes with Multi-Year Projections Current Services Baselines Independent Consensus Revenue Forecasts Independent Legislative Fiscal Agencies Independent Review […]

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More Measures of Muni Fiscal Stress

February 5, 2013 County Government

Yesterday, the Budget Division of New York’s Governor, Andrew Cuomo, released a list of municipalities indicating at least one form of fiscal distress. While the list and measures are preliminary (for information only), they are evidently precursors of more definitive measures that would enable municipal governments to benefit from capped binding arbitration decisions in labor […]

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NY Counties Sharing Sales Tax Revenue With Cities & Towns

December 3, 2012 Cities

There’s a little Albany debate going on on Twitter right now about which counties share more of their sales tax revenue with local cities, towns and villages. It’s part of the lead in to what’s likely to be a contentious meeting of the Albany County Legislature. Simultaneously, a couple members of the City of Albany’s […]

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Friday Afternoon Rant Supplement

November 30, 2012 CAFR

At the risk of prolonging the agony – for myself and readers of my most recent Friday afternoon rant, here are a couple of extras to further the point that counties charging cities, towns and villages, for Community College tuition is a political dodge, but likely one that will lead to even higher taxes. The […]

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Throwing Good Money After Bad … Over and Over and Over

October 16, 2012 Bond Rating

Harrisburg, PA is flat broke and the problem is related to its being legally, financially tied to a public authority, the Harrisburg Authority Resource Recovery Facility, which financed and built a waste incinerator. But this is awful. Bond Girl (@munilass on Twitter) lays out the detail at “Self-Evident”. This is a longish piece, but at […]

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The Patient is Recovering, but not Recovered

April 13, 2012 Economics

The Census data regarding state tax collections are now in for 2011. Here’s the report from Governing Magazine and here’s a summary quote: Total tax collections jumped in all 50 states last fiscal year, with oil-rich areas pocketing significant additional revenues. State financial data released today by the Census Bureau shows governments collected $763.7 billion […]

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