Tag: Albany

Those of you who read my first posts on this blog may recall reading that from 1990 to 2005 local government employment fell in New York City while soaring in the rest of the New York State, with public school employment a particular growth sector outside the City.  You may also recall that public school employment outside the city soared after the state implemented the STAR program, diverting even more of the state taxes paid by city residents away from the city’s schools, and in particular after the first ruling in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case.  It is almost as if the school districts elsewhere were rushing to establish “facts on the ground” that could not be taken away regardless of the needs of the city’s children or the burden on its taxpayers.  Well, more recent data from the State Department of Labor shows that from June 2005 to June 2006, that process continues.

Sorry, to those who are bored, to take my argument with Mr. Wonk to another post, but I think this is an important issue. 

I believe the "free media" given to incumbent politicians during their terms, combined with a lack of similar attention to challengers (other than those with "interesting" backgrounds like KT), is in part responsible for the lack of competitive legislative and congressional elections.  As responsible, if not more so, than imbalances in money and gerrymandering.

When I’ve had this discussion with journalists such as Ben Smith and Erik Engquist (the latter, unlike other news outlets, did write about my protest campaign for state assembly two years ago). Ben responded that it’s a dilemma since you want to be evenhanded but you also don’t want to waste the reader’s time with something that is not significant — like a challenger with no chance to win.  Erik pointed out that you have to work to get the attention of reporters rather than just send literature and letters asking for an interview, as I did, and that there are other ways (community organizing, prior successes) to draw press attention.

Now that I know how to post spreadsheets here, why not go nuts?

I attached a spreadsheet on health care finance backing up my assertions on that subject in an earlier post.

I attached a spreadsheet of comparable fiscal 2004 local government finance data to my prior post on who the winners  are in New York tax and spending priorities.

And, for comparison, attached here is more detailed information for FY 2002, for New York City, the Downstate Suburbs, Upstate Metros, the rest ofr New York State, New Jersey, the United States, and Fairfield County.

In addition, for the fun of it, I also attached on spreadhseet on comparative local goverment finance in several parts of California.  I whipped this up to send out to Donna Frye, in lieu of donation, who was running for Mayor of San Diego.  I hope she found it useful, but she lost.  Would that we had a Donna and Skip Frye in New York.

New Yorkers who have been paying attention must wonder what to think about the interests that rule the roost in Albany.  On one hand, you local doctor or hospital might do its best to make you well.  On the other hand, despite getting far more taxpayer money here than elsewhere, the Greater New York Hospital Association and Local 1199 put out commercials threatening to kill our babies if there is any limit on their funding.  On one hand, many NYC schoolteachers use their own money to buy school supplies.  On the other hand, the UFT has as its top goal a retirement at age 55, not a better education for New York City’s children.  Many city residents have friends and relatives in the suburbs or upstate who seem nice enough.  But their representatives in Albany have created a reverse Robin Hood school aid system that may be the least just in the nation, all at the expense of New York City’s children.  The members of the TWU rebuilt the transit system after the 1970s.  But they went on strike to get an early retirement at age 50, the cost of which would re-create the 1970s, without ever thinking about their own situation relative to those who pay their salaries, most of whom have no pension at all.  Your grandma seems nice.  The AARP gets more health benefits for the seniors, without giving a damn about the uninsured, or what will be left (besides debt) for future generations when they get old.  Your state legislator seems like a nice guy; the legislature is evil.

It is attached.  To understand it, read the prior post with 2005 data.

Note that this much larger file provides local government data for every county in New York State.

That data isn’t exactly comparable with to regional totals.  How do you allocate the LIRR, which counts as "state data" but has been allocated to Downstate New York local government to make it comparable with NYC and the U.S., between Nassau and Suffolk for example.  But it is pretty close.  So you can adjust the formulas in the output tables for data for any set of counties you choose.

Isn’t technology wonderful?  I’ve just finished compiling 2005 local government employment and payroll data from the U.S. Census Bureau, along with some relevant private-sector data, for New York City, the Rest of New York State, the U.S. average, and (well almost done) New Jersey.  And, I’m told by the management that I can actually attach the spreadsheet to this post, available for you to download.  I will attempt to do so, but if that doesn’t work you can still get it by e-mailing me at vampire-state (at) att.net.  I’ll be writing about the implications of the numbers (which are very much like those in 2002, 2000, 1997, etc. etc.) in the coming weeks, but for now I’ll just provide them and explain how they are calculated.

As I was standing amidst the overflowing garbage on the boardwalk on Coney Island on July 4^th, which the oft-downsized Parks Department can apparently no longer afford to pick up (the trash bins in Prospect Park were not emptied on Monday July 3^rd either), and watching the police recruits, who will be replaced by those with so little ability that they cannot get a job for more than $25,000 per year, I wished more people were aware of the importance of the 2000 pension deal, which in an instant transferred $billions to retired and about to retire public employees from our then-future, now present.  As long as the benefits for the insiders, and cost to the rest, are separated by a few years in time, most people do not notice the connection.  They are vaguely dissatisfied, but they don’t understand why.  The ongoing losses to our quality of life are “inevitable.”  Now, it seems, more “inevitable” losses may be coming.

Now that the slot machines are shut down, the majority of people who don’t read the newspapers may have noticed that New Jersey, the richest state in the country, a state that therefore has a low social service burden and a large tax base, is nonetheless bankrupt.  Some may be wondering how this could have happened.  The answer is that the State of New Jersey has pursued many of the future-destroying policies of the State of New York, but to a greater extent and with a lower tax rate.

The City and State of New York reduced their contributions to their employee pension funds, allowed employees with 10 or more year’s seniority to stop contributing themselves, and drastically increased benefits by adding an inflation adjustment that was retroactive for those already retired.  As a result, required pension contributions have soared, leading to year after year of service reductions and higher taxes.  Moreover, some of the additional contributions New York City will be forced to make have been deferred, leading to even greater contributions in the future.  We’ll start paying for some of the 2000 pension deal in 2010.

If you read my prior posts, you know that in Fiscal Year (FY) 2004 New York City residents paid an estimated $149.19 for every $1,000 of their personal income in state and local taxes, either directly or through the businesses they work in or patronize, and that the residents of the rest of New York State (the part outside New York City) paid $128.03.  This compares with a national average of $104.09.  And, you know that nearly the entire difference was accounted for by higher local taxes, since New York’s state taxes, at $62.12 per $1,000 of personal income, were just slightly higher than the national average of $60.83 per $1,000 (and New York State income tax payments by residents of Connecticut and New Jersey in part offsets that difference).  This is an overview of where that additional money goes.

Today was supposed to be a good day.  It’s the kids’ last day of school, a half day, and I took the day off to enjoy it with them.  But I just looked at the New York Times online, and saw a nightmare.

By accident, as a result of the failure of the "big three" to agree how to divide the spoils, this budget was going to be the least bad of the Pataki Administration.  There was no additional state aid to allow over-funded school districts in the rest of the state to spend even more, and pass the check to the city’s children and taxpayers.  There was a reduction in the spending increase for New York City’s greedy, Medicaid-financed health care providers.  There was even a few capital nickels for New York City’s ripped off children.  But according to the Times it won’t happen that way.