Expenditures

Happiness is a Positive Cash Flow. What’s the Cost of Ignorance?

April 23, 2012 Cash

Unhappiness is a negative cash flow. Even worse is not knowing what your cash position is. For the past year, I’ve been submitting Freedom of Information (FOIL) requests to Albany County, getting their cash position each week. I’ve been using the data to prototype some displays of public data. It’s not cash flow, but rather […]

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The Tail of the Recession

April 6, 2012 Cities

Even though the most recent “Great Recession” is officially over and even though it appears we are slowly emerging from its aftermath, governmental finances have not escaped its gravitational pull. The recession was bad enough. Many communities, which were economically strapped to begin with, started with a small buffer and are just now running out […]

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Wyckoff Heights, New York State, the PPACA, and the Supreme Court: What’s the Connection?

March 26, 2012 Economics

Yesterday in Once Again, Why Universal Coverge, I re-wrote what I written in 2005 and in other terms, even earlier: Because we take the half-step of expecting the healthcare system to provide care to all, but don’t go all the way, we have instead a hidden and half-baked system. The lack of universal coverage provides […]

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Talk Radio Made Me Do It

March 22, 2012 Budget

Talk radio is certainly not my gig. But I was asked on to a local show, Al Roney on AM 1300, this afternoon and it really forced me to do something I don’t do often, or particularly well: really simplify. As in simplify a lot. So it was an interesting and personally challenging exercise. The […]

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New Health Plan Deliberately Excludes High Cost Hospitals & Other Providers

March 21, 2012 Economics

By Robert Weisman from the Boston Globe: Harvard Pilgrim Health Care is teaming up with more than 50 hospitals and 16,500 doctors across the state to offer Massachusetts employers and their workers a 10 percent savings on health insurance by forming what they call a “focused network’’ of medical care groups that excludes Partners HealthCare […]

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Feckless Chapter 2: Albany County Legislature is Clumsy or Slick?

March 20, 2012 County Government

You have got to be kidding me! Well, you could be kidding me or you could be kidding me. Or us. The leadership of the Albany County Legislature has rushed past feckless to either a clumsy attempt at deception or a really slick effort at self-defeat. Or perhaps they really can’t see past the next […]

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In My Next Life I Want to be a Cartoonist!

March 14, 2012 County Government

John De Rosier just said in one picture what I and many others have spent thousands of words on. Here’s betting that this picture represents a turning point. Go look now!!! Still laughing.

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So What’s a New County Executive to Do?

February 26, 2012 Budget

Dan McCoy, Albany’s new County Executive will present his first State-of-the-County address this evening, March 5, 2012. What’s he going to say? Here’s my first prediction. Dan McCoy is going to call for selling the Albany County Nursing Home. Why, after building his political coalition among legislators and others, who overwhelmingly wanted to stay in […]

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Albany County Nursing Home, Why New York Needs to Change How it Reviews Subsidized CON Applications

February 13, 2012 County Government

It’s time to end the practice by New York’s Department of Health of allowing county “commitments” to using local property tax increases to subsidize nursing home losses as a means to meet the financial feasibility criterion in the certificate-of-need process. This practice contradicts and undermines the State’s policy of slowing growth in property taxes. Such […]

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Albany County Budget Stands … as a Document … Stay Tuned for Reality

December 15, 2011 Budget

As we noted earlier, Mike Breslin, the retiring Albany County Executive vetoed a number of legislative changes to his proposed budget. They would have had the unusual effect of increasing property taxes because he vetoed increased revenue estimates and new forms of “savings.” This past evening, by a very close vote (two-thirds of the members […]

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