It’s a big, thankless task, but somebody’s got to try to do it — again.

The Mayor’s new Advisory Commission on Property Tax Reform met for the first time last week to discuss ways to inject fairness into the system.

A previous Tax Study Commission issued a report in December 1989 on all taxes. The Citizens Budget Commission provided “When the Freeze Thaws: Options for Property Tax Reform” in November 1991, referring to Mayor Dinkin’s “freeze” on the average property tax rates, which is still in effect today, albeit somewhat higher.

A new study from a local watchdog group says the Metropolitan Transportation Authority needs to spend billions more on subway cars.

The MTA‘s current budget provides $1.7 billion to purchase new cars and overhaul existing ones. But the nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission says that figure is about $7 billion short.

The group recommends spending $8.3 billion on more than 3,600 new subway cars and another $710 million to overhaul existing cars over the next ten years.

A new report released by nonprofit watchdog group Citizens Budget Commission found that it would take a staggering $9 billion to update the MTA’s aging subway fleet. At that price, the agency would be able to purchase 3,650 new subway cars and retrofit an additional 1,200 existing cars, reports the Wall Street Journal. This assumes that car conversions could be achieved at the same price as the New York City Transit’s previous conversion, which would go for around $710 million.

The report notes that subway cars have been breaking down more frequently and it’s taking the MTA longer to get them repaired. “Subway car reliability declined from 2011 to 2016 as [the mean distance between car component failures] declined 35 percent and regressed to levels below the desired standard of 150,000 miles, notes the report. Additionally, the lack of normal replacement and delays in car delivery have aged the fleet, increasing the average age from from 17.9 years to 22.5 years.

New York will continue to fight for states' rights as it brings numerous lawsuits against the federal government, state Attorney General Barbara Underwood told a gathering of the Citizens Budget Commission in Manhattan on Thursday.

“My office together with a coalition of like-minded state attorneys general has been actively fighting in the courts,” Underwood said. “We’ve filed more than 140 legal actions against the Trump Administration’s assaults on our environment, our workers, our health and our civil rights.”

New York state has been “lazy” in codifying reproductive rights in either a statute or in the state’s constitution, Attorney General Barbara Underwood said Thursday, arguing for more urgent action on the issue.
Federal reproductive rights face a potentially dire threat with the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to the U.S. Supreme Court, Underwood said. The attorney general said Kavanaugh “appears to have been selected for his potential to move us back.”

Towards the tail end of remarks made before the Citizens Budget Commission in midtown Manhattan the attorney general said elected officials were lulled by a sense of federal protections under the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority needs to spend more than $7 billion in additional funding to improve its aging and increasingly unreliable subway fleet in New York City, according to a new report by a local watchdog group.

The nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission said in the report released Wednesday that subway cars have been breaking down more frequently as the MTA has replaced cars at a slower pace and lengthened maintenance cycles. Increasing the subway system’s reliability will require the restoration and replacement of much of the fleet, and will cost more than $9 billion, the report said.

Overtime in the city's Fire Department and Department of Corrections remain a "substantial cost" to taxpayers, a recent analysis from the nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission found.

Labor as well as management need to come to the table to develop better strategies to control these costs, the group said.

The CBC said that even though the city's uniformed employees make up less than one-quarter of the workforce, uniformed overtime stands at more than two-thirds of all of the city's overtime spending.

A bill passed by the state Legislature, and awaiting Gov. Andrew Cuomo's signature, would establish a new tax credit for investors in rural communities. Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner, the Round Lake Democrat who sponsored the measure, said it's to correct the failure of regional economic councils to provide the needed funds to help the rural communities.

But a state watchdog, the Citizens Budget Commission, is urging a veto. CBC is right. While this may spur needed rural development, until there are reforms —like the creation of an online database listing these investments and credits — the legislation is premature.

The Buffalo Billion verdict turned into a stampede against Gov. Andrew Cuomo Thursday afternoon.

The governor's re-election rivals and good-government groups charged at him shortly after a jury convicted Cuomo's "economic guru" and three western New York developers. The U.S. attorney's office successfully prosecuted former SUNY Polytechnic Institute head Alain Kaloyeros for conspiring with Louis Ciminelli, Joseph Gerardi and Steven Aiello—all major contributors to the governor's campaigns—to rig economic development contracts.

Ethics advocates have maintained that the changes the governor has made were largely superficial, and several groups released a joint statement complaining of an ongoing "lack of independent oversight by the comptroller, lax contracting rules that do not appear to require competitive bidding and an overall lack of transparency." Reinvent Albany, the New York Public Interest Research Group, the Citizens Budget Commission and the Fiscal Policy Institute appended to this statement a list of needed reforms, including the reinstatement of state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli's authority to review all state contracts of more than $250,000 (which the governor and state Legislature stripped him of in 2011), the end of the state's use of SUNY entities to run economic-development initiatives and the creation of a "database of deals" to allow the public to track all public transactions.

We’ve long warned about Mayor de Blasio’s reckless padding of the city workforce, but a new Citizens Budget Commission analysis sets out the cold, hard risks.

By the end of this fiscal year, the report notes, the city-employee head count will hit a record 331,520 — a jump of 34,171 workers, or 11.5 percent, since Mayor Michael Bloom­berg’s last fiscal year.

And the extra full-timers come with a hefty price tag: $2.5 billion this year alone. Plus, tack on another half-billion for long-term costs (retiree pensions, health care and other expenses).

ALBANY - A fiscal watchdog is calling on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to veto legislation that would create a new tax credit for investments in rural communities.

The Citizens Budget Commission said the proposed investment credit approved by the state Legislature last month is overly generous. The group also opposes any new economic development initiatives until the state adopts additional spending transparency and accountability measures. A spokesman for Cuomo said the bill has not been forwarded to their office or reviewed.

A day after announcing a vast new inspection plan for lead in New York City public housing, Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday doubled down on his administration’s commitment, vowing to “eradicate this problem once and for all.”

He said private contractors using specialized equipment would conduct inspections of every public housing apartment where lead paint might have been used — some 130,000 units — in order to create a database of those that contain lead paint and those that do not.

Maria Doulis, vice president at the nonprofit Citizens Budget Commission, said the mayor’s plan to use outside contractors for inspections was an “encouraging sign,” but added that the new spending on inspections would not address underlying management and operational issues at the sprawling Housing Authority.