Reports

Many New Yorkers enjoy buying Lottery tickets and taking a chance on a big prize. Some play the slot machines and other games in the State’s eight Video Lottery Terminal (VLT) facilities, four commercial casinos and seven Native American casinos. Sports wagering and interactive fantasy sports are now part of the gambling picture, and traditional betting on horses continues at racetracks and off-track betting locations.

Statewide local sales tax collections in the third quarter of 2020 declined by 9.5 percent, or $452 million, over the same quarter in 2019. This decrease, while alarming in a typical year, was still a marked improvement from the 27.1 percent drop in the second quarter, which reflected the peak of the economic impact to date from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Regional Table [.xlsx]

New York State’s unemployment rate dropped to 9.7 percent in September, marking the first time the rate has been below 10 percent since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While all states have lost employment since the COVID-19 pandemic struck earlier this year, New York surpasses almost every other in both number and percentage of job losses. 

New York State imposes a "general sales tax" at a single rate on most goods and some services. Counties and cities can impose their own local sales tax in addition to the State rate. This report is an update to the Office of the State Comptroller’s March 2015 publication on local government sales taxes in New York State.

The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the New York State and Local Retirement System (the System or NYSLRS) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020.

Six months into the COVID-19 recession, New Yorkers working in lower-paid sectors continue to suffer a disproportionate share of job losses statewide and especially in New York City.

This report on the use of overtime by New York State agencies examines patterns over the past ten calendar years. The total cost of overtime in calendar year 2019 was over $806 million, covering roughly 18.4 million overtime hours worked.

The 2019-20 fiscal year brought the convergence of two dramatically different periods to New York State. The nation’s longest recorded economic expansion continued to generate overall job growth through most of the fiscal year before finally ending in February, as the COVID-19 pandemic forced severe limits on business activity and significantly impacted the State’s economy.

While New York State has regained more than one in four of the jobs it lost in March and April, the unprecedented scale of losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic leaves a daunting path ahead for the State to climb back to pre-recession employment levels. For New York City, the picture is even more troubling.

Even as we grapple with the serious public health and economic challenges stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change continues to represent an urgent and growing threat. 

The New York State Legislature amended the State Finance Law in 2015 by adding a new Section 8-c, which provides for the establishment of a statewide electronic system to help detect and prevent fraud, waste and abuse in government spending and to help avoid improper payment of public moneys.

The Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the State of New York for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020.

New York State’s total employment count hit an all-time high of more than 9.8 million in February, reflecting net gains of nearly 2 million jobs since April 1996. 

Nearly three-quarters of New York State small businesses received assistance in recent months through the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), according to Census Bureau survey data for the week ending June 27.

Guarding against the investment risks presented by climate change while preparing for the transition to a low-carbon economy is central to Comptroller DiNapoli’s work as trustee of the New York State Common Retirement Fund, one of the largest public pension funds in the country.

Approved payments to New York recipients for Unemployment Insurance totaled $32.1 billion from March 1 through July 17, with steep increases in payments following the onset of the pandemic.

As was widely reported, New York’s unemployment rate has soared upward in recent months, with May's 14.5 percent nearly four times the 3.7 percent in February. But that rate is only one measure of the impact of lost jobs.

The New York State Common Retirement Fund (Fund) is one of the largest public pension funds in the nation, with assets held in trust for the benefit of the more than one million members and pensioners of the New York State and Local Retirement System (System). The System is widely regarded as one of the nation’s best-managed and best funded public pension plans.

Of the total contracts, 2,276 (50 percent) were processed after their start or renewal dates. This is an increase from 2018, when 47 percent were reported late. The trend bears watching; the State must avoid further regression toward the ten-year high of 87 percent late in 2013.