Budget

Albany County: Working Hard to Make it Harder for the Public to Understand its Budget

November 3, 2012 Budget

The past several years, Albany County made its tentative (proposed) budget available online, not only in a readable format (PDF), but in a format (Excel) that the public and occasional legislators could actually do calculations with. No more. When the County Executive’s Tentative Budget was released last month, the PDF documents were posted online, but […]

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Nassau and Suffolk County 2013 Tentative Budgets

September 26, 2012 Budget

Report that budgets for Nassau and Suffolk Counties in NY have been released. Nassau has no property tax increase. Suffolk’s is reported to be under the property tax cap. More later.

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More on, and a Possible Correction on IGT

June 7, 2012 Budget

Last week, we noted that the Federal government wants some of its IGT money back. I’m not, not, not going to try to explain how this program works or why and how counties put up $.50 on one day and the next day their nursing homes get back $1.00. But during the recession, counties only […]

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Chronically Confident Calculations

May 29, 2012 Budget

In Bias in Government Forecasts, Jeffrey Frankel, an economist at Harvard’s Kennedy School asks the question, “Why do so many countries so often wander far off the path of fiscal responsibility?” In his the full paper at the Oxford Review of Economic Policy Frankel details how national governments (with very rare exceptions) propose consistently optimistic […]

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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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Suffolk County Deficit

March 6, 2012 Budget

Most of this story is behind the Newsday pay wall, but the headline is noteworthy. Suffolk County closed 2011 with a $33 million budget gap — believed to be its first year-end deficit in 20 years, officials said Monday. I’ll have to go poke around to see what $33 million is as a percentage.

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A More Accurate & Richer Way to Think about Economic Growth, Budgets, & Other Forecasts

February 9, 2012 Economics

In the past four years, Nate Silver has done more than anyone else I can think of to bring the world of probability and statistics to the realms of politics. Oh, everyone reads polls, but Silver introduced a wider audience to many subtleties and to how to combine multiple polls into richer and more reliable […]

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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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Albany County Budget Vetoes Would Increase (Not Decrease) Property Taxes

December 13, 2011 Budget

Albany County Executive Michael Breslin, with just a couple weeks to go before his 16 year tenure ends, has issued a series of unusual budget vetoes. These may be his most significant budget vetoes ever and they certainly are within the past half-dozen years, but there’s a twist. They would lead to increased property taxes […]

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Another NY County Shedding its Nursing Home

December 9, 2011 Budget

No budget detail yet, but as part of its budget process, Ulster County has determined to get out of the nursing home business. They’ve established a county-run limited development corporation (LDC) as an intermediary to smooth the process. More details later.

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