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Report
City Budget
Real Numbers, Real Choices
Recommendations for a Clearer Fiscal View in the NYC Executive Budget
April 18, 2024
New York City’s long-run fiscal stability is precarious, and its short-term prospects are uncertain. Major causes of this uncertainty are revenue estimates that may be unreasonably conservative and spending estimates for current programs that are alarmingly understated.
Report
City Budget
Setting the Right Ceiling
Rethinking the City’s Debt Limits and Capital Process
April 03, 2024
New York City has requested that the State raise the City’s debt limit—the maximum amount of the long-term debt the City can have outstanding—by $18.5 billion.
Report
City Budget
Straight from New Yorkers
CBC Resident Survey Gives Comprehensive View of Satisfaction with Core City Services, Quality of Life
March 19, 2024
The CBC 2023 Resident Survey provides the most comprehensive, statistically valid, post-pandemic view into how New Yorkers feel about the City’s quality of life and how they rate City government services.
Report
City Budget
NYC's Already High Spending Keeps Climbing
February 22, 2024
Despite the pandemic, recession, and multiple rounds of PEGs, City-funded spending is slated to increase 22.6 percent between fiscal years 2019 and 2025.
Report
State Budget
Top of the Charts
New York and Its Localities Were #1 in Taxes and #2 in Spending
February 13, 2024
New York does not exist in a vacuum. It competes with other places, and other jurisdictions’ experiences provide an important perspective on the different choices that are being made.
Report
City Budget
Don’t Step Off the Cliff
Fiscal Cliffs and Budget Gaps in New York City’s Fiscal Year 2025 Preliminary Budget
February 08, 2024
To balance the fiscal year 2025 budget while also ensuring projected spending fully supports all planned programs, the City should implement an additional PEG in the Executive Budget and shrink or eliminate programs that the available resources cannot fully support.
Report
City Budget
Unpacking the PEG
Examining the Impact of the NYC November 2023 Financial Plan Savings
January 10, 2024
Agencies should continue to identify efficiency savings that do not affect critical program services.
Report
Public Workforce
How to Make $1 Billion in Labor Savings Real & Recurring
September 02, 2020
As the City faces the worst fiscal crisis in generations, municipal workers are also facing the dire prospect of layoffs.
Report
Housing
Strategies to Boost Housing Production in the New York City Metropolitan Area
August 26, 2020
Building more housing for every type of household can help make the New York region more affordable and competitive for generations to come.
Report
City Budget
Hard Choices That Can Balance New York City's Budget
June 10, 2020
By making the right hard choices the City can balance the budget without resorting to long-term borrowing, layoffs, service cuts, or tax increases.
Report
State Budget
A Framework for Hard Choices
Choosing Among Options to Address New York’s State and Local Fiscal Stress
May 22, 2020
This policy brief identifies and assesses options available to governments to deal with their fiscal problems.
Report
Housing
Rent and Ride
Affordability is About Both
January 13, 2020
While housing is the largest share of spending for most households, a more robust picture of affordability also should include transportation costs.
Report
Capital Spending
New York City's Water and Sewer System
Is the Rent Too Damn High?
December 14, 2011
This report provides a history of the City's water rental payment, critiques the current method for setting the rent, and suggests alternative approaches to setting the rent.
Report
City Budget
What is a “Balanced Budget”?
November 08, 2011
This brief examines the multiple versions of a balanced budget standard that have arisen from the City's deviation from Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and recent modifications to GAAP that set a new and higher benchmark for a balanced budget.
Report
Economic Development
Avoiding Past Mistakes
Principles for Governing Regional Economic Development Councils
September 12, 2011
This report examines New York State economic development programs' past mistakes and explores the potential to improve meaningful outcomes via new regional councils designed to streamline and coordinate the current array of state economic development efforts. It warns of the danger that new regional councils will become new heads on the already huge an unwieldy New York State economic development portfolio.
Report
Energy & Environment
New York’s Green Policies
Too Much or Too Little – A Competitive Perspective
April 03, 2011
This report assesses how New York compares to other cities in pursuing green objectives and suggests how New York’s leaders can set priorities for taking additional steps to promote environmental goals in ways that align with goals of economic growth and urban competitiveness.
Report
Economic Development
It's Time to End New York State's Empire Zone Program
December 02, 2008
The Economic Development Zone program has become a vehicle for giving tax breaks to a variety of corporations with no clear, consistent, verifiable justification for the public investment. This report describes the benefits enjoyed by participating firms and how those benefits are distributed among economic regions of the State and types of firms; identifies and elaborates on the three serious problems that compromise the program’s efficacy; and asserts that the Empire Zone program cannot be fixed, citing past failures to do so, and should end.
Report
Public Workforce
The Citizens' Stakes in Collective Bargaining
Recommendations for the Current Negotiations with the Municipal Employee Unions
December 12, 2000
Report presenting recommendations for contracts to be negotiated with municipal employees that would help reduce the cost of public services, improve the quality of those services, and enhance the income and working conditions of New York's civil servants.
Report
Capital Spending
An Affordable Debt Policy for New York State and New York City
October 17, 2000
Presents a new approach for determining how much the State and City should borrow, including criteria for deciding how much state and local debt is affordable.