The MTA’s $51.5 billion plan to modernize New York City’s crumbling transit system will saddle it with $38 billion in debt — on top of the $44 billion it already owes, according to Moody’s credit agency.

By 2026, the MTA’s debt will be over four times its annual revenue, creating a potentially disastrous scenario for an agency already answering massive deficits with service cuts and fare hikes.

To avoid financial calamity, “MTA could turn to additional fare increases or service cuts that would exacerbate negative ridership trends, and its financial position could decline further,” Moody’s said in its Oct. 3 rating determination, which deemed MTA bonds a sound short-term investment.

The increasing debt is not an immediate red flag, but rather “a warning sign that you have to make sure you have the revenues to cover it,” Citizens Budget Commission president Andrew Rein told The Post.

“Given that we have these capital needs, you don’t want to stop what you have to do,” he said.

The rising cost of New York’s Medicaid program is tied to poor budgeting, according to two new reports released Wednesday.

Reports from two separate fiscal watchdog groups, the Empire Center of New York and the Citizens Budget Commission, detail the state’s declining efforts to curb spending that has left the health care program at a deficit.

Spending totals for New York’s program has historically outranked other states, even exceeding the national average.

The Cuomo administration implemented an inflation-based cap on program spending in 2011, which both reports acknowledge to have been effective. But, they also note in 2016, efforts to control costs trended downward overall enrollment plateaued, and individual enrollee costs ballooned.

The Citizens Budget Commission’s analysis shows between 2016 and 2018, individual recipient costs grew from $9,973 to $11,529 — due to minimum wage increases for service providers, older people using long-term care facilities and hospitals on the fiscal decline.

Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, said the $1.7 billion payment postponement in 2019 will impact New York’s four-year financial plan — between the years 2020 and 2023 — reflecting a $9 billion shortfall.

“You didn’t save any money, because you still owe it. The state actually papered over the problem,” Rein told The Post.

The group’s report recommends either redesign and cut back on the existing Medicaid program, curb economic development spending or refocus education aid spending to specifically target high need districts.

Some forms of mutual political back-scratching are business as usual, while others rise to the level of corruption. Then there is the gray area in the middle.

There is nothing illegal in Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s decision to raise Medicaid reimbursement rates shortly after a powerful union donated $1 million to the state Democratic Party. The rates have been low and the increase is small.

But the context stinks. The quiet way in which it was executed suggests the Cuomo administration did not consider it among its proudest moments.

Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog group, estimates the state’s Medicaid shortfall could rise to more than $7 billion over the next four years.

Medicaid is a critical program that provides health care to the country’s poor and is funded by federal and state governments. Its problems demand serious attention, not shortcuts and windfalls and deceptions.

“All of the BID leaders I know appreciate that what makes New York New York is having this diversity of retail and having mom and pop shops next to big name stores,” Lappin said. “That’s part of the fabric of the city and we want everyone to succeed.”

Like other BIDs, the Alliance for Downtown New York offers services and workshops that help small-business owners navigate government rules and regulations, as well as share best practices. The group also launched a grant competition geared toward small businesses, with the goal of helping them compete online.

“I think there are BIDs in neighborhoods that now are just seeing signs of neighborhood change – or what people call ‘gentrification’ – and I think they are trying to manage it because there can be benefits and costs,” Meltzer said. “My sense is that, more than not, the BIDs are very community focused, very neighborhood focused, very focused on their constituency there.”

In order to ensure that BIDs continue to meet the changing needs of property owners and tenants, the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan fiscal monitor, has called for standardized public reviews of their operations.

“Neighborhoods change over time, and the concerns change over time, and you want to ensure that the needs and goals and plans of the BIDs continue to align with what the property owners and business owners in the district are looking for,” said Ana Champeny, the Citizens Budget Commission’s director of city studies.

Should New York City charge more to ride the ferry? by POLITICO's Dana Rubinstein: Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ferry system is the second-most heavily subsidized urban ferry system of its size in the United States. Those are the findings of the non-partisan Citizens Budget Commission, which last week crunched the numbers at POLITICO’s request. The commission found that only the New Orleans ferry subsidy, at $9.88 a trip, exceeded New York City’s own per-ride subsidy of $9.34. New Orleans and New York City, however, are national outliers among the nine ferry systems that each serve more than 1 million passengers a year. The Citizens Budget Commission’s numbers, coupled with the city's recent acknowledgment that most of its ferry riders have healthy salaries, point to one of the most frequent questions transit advocates ask about the NYC Ferry: If its riders can afford to pay more, why not charge them more — like the $6.75 riders pay for the express bus — and free up money for other pressing transit needs?

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s hefty subsidy to run the city’s beleaguered ferry service is the second highest in the nation, according to a report released Monday.

Among ferry systems with over one million annual trips, NYC Ferry lagged behind only New Orleans in terms of public subsidies, according to the Citizens Budget Commission.

De Blasio’s budget calls for a $9.34 per-ride ferry subsidy.

NYC Ferry also came in second nationwide in terms of operating expenses covered by fares — just 24%.

For comparison, the city’s Staten Island Ferry — which the city Department of Transportation provides to riders free of charge — receives $5.46 per rider in government subsidy.

Ferry operators in San Francisco, meanwhile, spend just over $4 per rider and recover 60-plus percent of operating costs from the fare box.

Higher fares are the key to sustainable finances, CBC analyst Sean Campion told The Post.

“The big difference is fares. The fares that [other cities] offer vary by route, so that routes that are longer and have higher operating costs, or serve a smaller number of people, tend to have higher fares,” Campion said.

“The city should at least consider options to make the system more sustainable,” he added.

The CBC’s analysis comes on the heals of ridership data released last week, which found ferry-goers to be overwhelmingly white and rich.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ferry system is the second-most heavily subsidized urban ferry system of its size in the United States.

Those are the findings of the non-partisan Citizens Budget Commission, which last week crunched the numbers at POLITICO’s request. The commission found that only the New Orleans ferry subsidy, at $9.88 a trip, exceeded New York City’s own per-ride subsidy of $9.34.

New Orleans and New York City, however, are national outliers among the nine ferry systems that each serve more than 1 million passengers a year.

The Citizens Budget Commission’s numbers, coupled with the city's recent acknowledgment that most of its ferry riders have healthy salaries, point to one of the most frequent questions transit advocates ask about the NYC Ferry: If its riders can afford to pay more, why not charge them more — like the $6.75 riders pay for the express bus — and free up money for other pressing transit needs?

“The key difference between NYC Ferry and the other ferry systems is that the other ferry systems have much higher fares,” said Sean Campion, a senior research associate at the Citizens Budget Commission.

Fifteen years ago, before New Yorkers learned to “grumblebrag” about film shoots taking up sidewalks and parking spaces, and before the musical version of “The Producers” moved from a Broadway theater to a Brooklyn soundstage, New York state decided to try out a new tax credit to lure film and television shoots. Prior to 2004, some filmmakers and TV producers filmed in New York City for its iconic location and local talent, some even inextricably linking their work to the city – think Nora Ephron, Woody Allen and “Sesame Street.” At the time, film was a $5 billion industry that employed more than 100,000 people in New York City, according to then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg. But as many states began offering subsidies for filming – not to mention the generous Canadian incentive programs that made Vancouver and Toronto film hubs – studio executives said New York had to get into the arms race.


While $420 million may seem like a big pot to draw from, the number of productions applying for the credit has shot up since 2004. To pay every qualifying production, the state has pulled funds allotted to future years. “Let’s say (the state has) run out of the 2019 allotment, they start to pull down the 2020 allotment, even though the movie is being filmed in 2019, and the costs are in 2019,” said David Friedfel, director of state studies at Citizens Budget Commission, a fiscal watchdog.

Wildly popular with the film industry and unions like the Theatrical Teamsters Local 817 or the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 52, whose members make up film and TV crews, the film tax credit program is also a hit with some lawmakers – including Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris. Two of the city’s four major production facilities – Silvercup Studios and Kaufman Astoria Studios – are in Gianaris’ Queens district.

But tax policy experts and some upstate lawmakers call the credit a waste. “It’s definitely bad tax policy,” Friedfel said. “Economic development, particularly economic development that is targeted to a specific industry, should be done to help that industry get established in New York. Once it’s established, it should become self-sufficient.”

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's recent efforts to improve service and upgrade its aging infrastructure comes with a steep price tag for the agency, whose own chairman repeatedly has described the MTA's financial situation as "dire."

From a newly proposed $51.5 billion five-year capital plan to an annual $16.8 billion operating budget to alarmingly high rates of overtime and debt, the MTA’s recent proposed spending spree has raised concerns among transportation and financial experts, who are dubious of the agency’s plans to pay its bills.

Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, agreed that the MTA's financial plan counts on a lot going right, and very little going wrong. But, Rein said, the MTA could help its own fortunes, including by looking for more productivity from workers and getting its most important projects done first.

“I think they know their challenges. They’re being ambitious. But the proof will be in the pudding,” said Rein, whose nonprofit think tank commission has been critical of the MTA’s financial outlook. “I think they’re making serious efforts. But at the end of the day, they need to deliver. Part of that delivery, quite frankly, will be helped by building trust with people and being more transparent with their priorities.”

New York's Medicaid budget is growing at a faster rate than the state can currently afford. That comes as a published report alleges a potential pay-to-play arrangement between a large hospital association and Gov. Andrew Cuomo's 2018 re-election campaign.

The report in the New York Times said Cuomo's campaign asked the Greater New York Hospital Association to make a donation to the state Democratic Party, which the governor controls, during Cuomo's 2018 re-election campaign. The group gave $1 million, twice as much as it had donated to any political campaign for over a decade.

The watchdog group Citizens Budget Commission said while it can't comment on any pay-to-play allegations, the group's David Friedfel agrees that the Medicaid budget is under a lot of pressure right now because the labor costs and other issues. He said that's a concern.

"At a certain point, you have to pay the piper," Friedfel said. "The bills are due and they have to be paid."

Citizens Budget Commission estimates the Medicaid shortfall could rise to over $7 billion over the next four years, if nothing is done.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is reviewing New York's use of proceeds from the sale of Fidelis Care to Centene, which helped fund an increase reimbursement in reimbursement to health care providers.

The letter from CMS to state Medicaid Director Donna Frescatore, which she received Aug. 26, surfaced in a New York Times article highlighting more than $1 million in campaign donations from the Greater New York Hospital Association to the state Democratic Party.

The state Medicaid program isn't facing heat only from CMS. The Citizens Budget Commission on Thursday blasted the state for the way it funded Medicaid in the budget. The state delayed $1.7 billion in Medicaid payments until April, when fiscal 2020 began, to avoid exceeding its global cap on spending.

The shift will require the state to find savings or risk overrunning its spending cap.

"The state making an end of fiscal year 2019 Medicaid payment a week late was no mere delay," Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, a fiscal watchdog, said in a statement. "It was an obfuscation of the state's fiscal condition, allowing the state to avoid addressing a deep and recurring problem. The state budget does not include enough funding for its Medicaid program."

The CBC estimated the state Medicaid budget gap would be $3 billion this fiscal year, which runs through March, and $1.5 billion annually in each subsequent year.

"Deferring payments to paper over unbudgeted spending growth is imprudent fiscal management," Rein said. "When releasing the midyear financial plan update, the state should provide a clear, accurate financial picture and take actions to reduce spending to bring the state's finances into balance." —Jonathan LaMantia

The city’s police department has launched a new surveillance system to keep an eye on homeless New Yorkers at more than 10 subway stations, THE CITY reported on Thursday. NYPD officers will watch feeds from more than 100 live cameras that show views from stations and platforms in order to respond to “quality-of-life and public safety concerns,” the city announced in August. The monitoring program comes as part of a city and state effort to address homelessness in the subways.


“The intent was able to leverage our technology to be able to view many stations at one time with a couple of officers who are skilled and seasoned and would know what we’re looking at,” NYPD Chief of Transit Edward Delatorre, told THE CITY. “Probably the people who are going to benefit the most are people who are outstretched in our stations and undomiciled.”

In July, Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged the MTA to address homelessness in subways, citing a large increase of about 23 percent in homeless people in the subway this year from 2018. In a letter to the MTA board, the governor said the increased number of homeless people is “directly impacting service to riders.”

A few weeks later the MTA announced it would create a task force that would come up with a plan within 30 days to address the rising homeless population. As THE CITY reports, no plan has been made available yet. And at the governor’s request, the MTA also hired 500 new transit police officers to man the stations, doubling the current force.

According to a report from the Citizens Budget Commission, the cost of hiring 500 officers, along with 81 supervisors, will exceed $260 million in the 2020-2023 financial plan, contributing to a $1 billion budget gap expected over the next four years.