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She raised hell in Washington. Might D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee be ideal for New York City.
A few questions here:
Much has been made about D.C. voters recently rejecting incumbent Mayor Adrian Fenty over City Council Chair Vincent Gray – with the speculation that the Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, cost Fenty the primary. Fenty gave Rhee free rein three years ago to overhaul the city’s dismal schools.
As noted in the spreadsheet attached to this post, direct expenditures by the City of New York fell from $210.97 per $1,000 of city residents’ personal income in FY 1972 to $164.77 per $1,000 of income in FY 1987, a decrease explained by having the Medicaid program shifted to the state’s books and the end of massive public school expenditures on the Baby Boom generation. A similar decrease was recorded for local governments in the rest of New York State. Since then, total direct expenditures by the City of New York have been essentially unchanged as a share of residents’ personal income in peak economic years, based on FY2000 and FY 2007 data, while local government expenditures increased in the rest of New York State, the United States and New Jersey.
The total salaries and wages paid to employees of the City of New York, however, fell as a share of the income of all New York City residents from FY1987 to FY 2000 and from FY 2000 to FY 2007. So did the city’s direct expenditures on Libraries, Corrections, the Fire Department, the Department of Sanitation, and Judicial and Legal. Police Department expenditures increased as a share of city residents’ income from FY 1987 to FY 2000 and fell from that year to FY 2007, while Parks, Recreation and Culture and Housing and Community Development expenditures fell and then rose, but all were lower as a share of city residents’ income in FY 2007 than they had been 20 years earlier in FY 1987. Mass transit operating expenditures plunged as a share of city residents’ personal income over the period. Where is all the money going? Download the spreadsheet attached to the post linked above, print out the worksheet marked “output,” and read on.
Carl Paladino needs some political maturity, and it can’t come fast enough.
Will he apologize for his outrageous behavior last night.
Did he really think he would get a heartbeat away from becoming governor without scrutiny he doesn’t like.
Aides had to separate Paladino from New York Post State Editor Fred Dicker at an upstate hotel.
A Dispatch from Silent Firecracker:
There will be a memorial for Bernie Catcher at Temple Shalom, 2075 E
68th Street (between Ave U and Ave T) this Sunday, October 3rd at 5PM.
Collation to follow across the street at St Bernard's. I hope you would be able to attend, since Bernie will be taking attendance. (also feel free to repost this)
That is one of several possible explanations for a data anomaly I have discovered in the state and local finance data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The State of New York has a pension system that covers both state employees and the employees of local governments outside New York City. New York City has its own pension system. State taxpayers, including New York City taxpayers, contribute to the state pension system, presumably in an amount sufficient to provide for state workers. Local governments outside New York City, using taxes collected outside New York City, also contribute to the state pension system, presumably in amounts sufficient to provide for their own workers. New York City taxpayers have to pay into the New York City pension system to cover the pensions of local government employees in New York City.
The Census Bureau provides pension data for pension systems, not the state and local governments that contribute to them. So I only had one number for all pension benefits paid by the state system, both to former employees of the state and former employees of local governments outside of New York City. To provide a separate number for each, I decided to make an assumption that the share of the total benefit payments that went to the former state workers must be in proportion to the share of the total pension contributions made by the State of New York. But the results were bizarre – the presumed state pension benefits soared from FY 2000 to FY2007 as a proportion of state residents’ personal income, while the presumed local government pension benefits fell. So I decided to look more carefully at the state versus local taxpayer contributions to the New York State pension fund. What the hell is going on up there?
If the people of Western New York don't understand the issues with New York's Medicaid program they can't blame the press, as this article is one of the fairest and most factually accurate accounts I have read. It doesn't contain a lot of numbers, but it is consistent with the numbers I have reported, so if one wants an overview written by an actual journalist, they could do worse than to follow the link and read the article.
I am told that one has to officially get in a pardon request before October 1st, 2010; so let me write this column as a formal request to our present governor David Paterson. I want to go on record as another who joined the chorus: PARDON JOHN O'HARA; PLEASE.
By now most readers to these blogs know the story of John O'Hara, but let me do a synopsis for the edification of those who don't know too much about him. John is an attorney and a political activist. There was a time when he was a perennial challenger to the Brooklyn political establishment and status quo: back then he ran hard and often. Some detractors thought he ran too much. Sometimes he ran others as challengers; near all the time he would be challenging some lackluster incumbent representing the powers that be. As a democrat (and insurgent) he stepped on many toes; sometimes he “mashed corns” without apologizing. He even supported challengers for offices as high as Brooklyn District Attorney -despite warnings from some concerned folks, that vendettas and reprisals are likely. What happened to him smells of a reprisal, or a vendetta, or just plain old-fashioned human revenge for something or the other.
I wondered how long after the primary it would take for me to start second-guessing my endorsement of Chris Owens for District Leader.
The answer is two weeks; I’m second guessing.
Not sure if and when I’ll reach the regret stage.
Owens is circulating a letter asking Vito Lopez to step aside as Brooklyn’s Democratic Leader pending the resolution of the various investigations of Lopez and/or his Ridgewood-Bushwick social services empire.
I will discuss this first in the narrow context in which Owens raises it, and then more widely.
I often drive on the Cross Bronx expressway, passing Elementary School P.S. 70, and reminisce about my school days there. I remember 3rd grade class, and playing on the roof-top gym surrounded by metal bars everywhere so no one would fall.
Surprised, but I guess really not shocked is the best way to describe when I picked up the NY Post this morning and saw a story about a current P.S. 70 teacher who was an alleged former prostitute and stripper. I've had a very successful career in journalism, and I am not attacking teachers, but I have to admit that I have always wondered how far I could have gone if I had received the same private school education as many other journalists.
The spreadsheet attached below presents data similar to the local government finance data presented in this post and also written about in two others. But whereas the former spreadsheet contained local government finance data for fiscal year 2007 alone, this spreadsheet presents local government finance data for the years 1972, 1987, 2000 and 2007. These were all up years for the economy, beginning with the administrations of New York City Mayor John Lindsey and Governor Nelson Rockefeller, through the most prosperous year of the administrations of Mayor Ed Koch and Governor Mario Cuomo, the peak economic year for Mayor Rudi Giuliani and Governor George Pataki, and the peak economic year of Mayor Michael Bloomberg with Governor Pataki’s last budget.
The years were chosen to be fairly comparable with each other, to separate changes in local government finance due to long run policy changes from those related to economic booms and busts. Economic crashes and fiscal crises followed each of them, with the worst for New York City following 1972. The quality of life was substantially lower for nearly 25 years after that; in some cases the quality of public services in New York City has never fully recovered. Is New York heading into another era like that one? And did that era every fully end?