Reports

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 2017 was more than $761 million, covering roughly 17.5 million overtime hours worked.

New York City’s economy is strong and continues to set new records. It added 715,000 jobs between 2009 and 2017, the largest and longest job expansion in the post–World War II period. After growing by 81,000 jobs in 2017, employment reached 4.4 million, a new record and 615,000 higher than the prerecession peak. Although job growth has since slowed, the City is on pace to add more than 72,000 jobs in 2018.

A number of laws govern the procurement of goods and services. Seeking competition guards against favoritism, extravagance, fraud and corruption. However, there is a well-established exception to these competitive bidding requirements for professional services, such as those rendered by attorneys, engineers or accountants, where cost is only one element that a responsible local official would want to consider. This report discusses some categories of professional services, the costs associated with these services and recent audit findings by OSC about local procurement policies and their implementation. The report also highlights best practices that local governments and school districts can follow that may reduce costs. 

The Bronx is the northernmost of New York City’s five boroughs and home to nearly one-fifth of the City’s population. Since 2010, it has been the fastest-growing county in New York State, driven by immigration.

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The Mohawk Valley Region’s dominant economic center is the Utica-Rome metropolitan area. Unemployment and child poverty rates are higher in the Region than for the State as a whole, while household income is below the State median. While the Region has lost industries and employers over the past couple of decades, there has recently been a modest increase in new manufacturing jobs. Also, the City of Utica has harnessed its surplus of affordable housing by reaching out to refugees to come and establish families and businesses in the area.

In governmental budgeting, there can sometimes be a tendency to focus on the short term. At any level of government, taxpayers and those who depend on public services can suffer if officials don’t ensure a strong financial foundation for the long term as well.

Brooklyn is the most populous of the five boroughs that make up New York City. It has a large foreign-born population, which has contributed to its success, and is one of the most diverse counties in the nation.

New York State has over 5,000 functioning dams, 861 of which are owned or co-owned by local governments. Local officials need to manage this infrastructure effectively, not only to preserve important capital assets, but also because it is a necessary investment in public safety. This report focuses on those dams that would pose the greatest risks in case of failure and therefore warrant the most careful monitoring and management. The report also discusses steps local officials and residents can take to manage those risks.

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In 2016, the State’s 109 active Industrial Development Agencies reported projects valued at $95.6 billion, with nearly $715 million in net annual tax exemptions and $10.0 billion in total debt outstanding, including conduit and other debt. They supported 4,451 projects that had created 208,707 jobs from their inception through 2016.

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On April 26, 2018, the City of New York released a modification to its financial plan for FY 2018 and a new four-year financial plan (“the April Plan”) covering fiscal years 2019 through 2022. The April Plan projects a surplus of nearly $3.7 billion for FY 2018 and a balanced budget for FY 2019.

Of the total contracts, 2,210 contracts (54 percent) were processed late, after their start or renewal dates. This is a modest reduction from 2016, when 59 percent were reported late, and continues a decline in the percentage of late contracts from the five-year high of 87 percent reported late in 2013.

The New York State Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprise (MWBE) Asset Management and Financial Institution Strategy (Chapter 171, Laws of 2010) was enacted to codify and replicate best practices for providing MWBEs that are asset managers, investment banks and financial and professional service providers with the opportunity to offer services to fiduciary-controlled entities established by New York State law.

This report identifies the number of late payments, the number of days to process late payments, the amount of interest paid and the reasons for the delays.

Credit cards are the most commonly used vehicle for consumer borrowing, and thus play an important role in both the overall economy and individual households’ finances.

Queens is the largest in size of the five boroughs that make up New York City and the second most populous. Since the end of the recession in 2009, it has added 110,500 private sector jobs, 10 times more than were lost during the recession and more than twice as many as the second-largest expansion in the 1990s.

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The New York State Common Retirement Fund holds and invests the assets of the New York State and Local Retirement System on behalf of more than one million State and local government employees and retirees and their beneficiaries.

The New York State Health Insurance Program (NYSHIP), administered by the State Department of Civil Service (Civil Service), is one of the nation’s largest public sector health insurance programs. NYSHIP covers over 1.2 million active and retired State, local government and school district employees, and their dependents.

Most large urban areas in New York State are served by municipal sewer systems, many of which commingle stormwater with the wastewater from homes and businesses in combined sewer systems. The flows from combined sewers can overwhelm treatment systems and have a harmful impact on the environment. This report, as part of the Office of the State Comptroller’s infrastructure series, describes the current scale of the problem in the State and some of the steps being taken to remediate it. 

The State Budget determines how much can be spent in various program areas and how the necessary revenue will be raised. In recent years, annual budgets have increasingly become broader policy-making documents.

Each year, thousands of New Yorkers take the opportunity, while paying their State taxes, to support a variety of charitable purposes through the State’s personal income tax check-off programs.