Reports

While the State ended State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2009-10 with a positive General Fund balance and all restricted reserves intact, this was accomplished because the Executive delayed $1.1 billion more in payments than had been anticipated in February.

The General Fund is the main operating fund of the State and is traditionally used to measure the State’s projected budget deficit.

The report is an update to a report on the sales tax first issued in 2006, "Local Government Sales Taxes in New York State." The report highlights new issues related to this important revenue source, including the potential impact of the upcoming 2010 Decennial Census on the share of tax revenues flowing to individual governments.

One tenet of the “smart growth” movement is that communities should strive to preserve open space, farmland, natural beauty and critical environmental areas.

The film and television production industry plays an important role in the economy of New York State, but states across the nation and certain Canadian provinces are aggressively competing for film and television jobs by offering tax incentives.

The nation is slowly emerging from the worst recession since the Great Depression, but the recovery is expected to be slow and uneven. Although the national economy grew at 5.9 percent during the fourth quarter of 2009, the strong growth could not offset the deep contractions that occurred in the first half of the year. As a result, the economy contracted by 2.4 percent in 2009, the largest annual decline in 63 years.

According to Office of the State Comptroller (OSC) records, there are currently 4,172 local government entities in New York. These include over 1,600 county, city, town and village governments, as well as 697 school districts and 872 fire districts. The nearly 1,000 other local government entities include libraries, community colleges, industrial development agencies and consolidated health districts, among others.

New York State has relied far too heavily on debt for far too long. Ten years after enacting legislation to slow the growth in borrowing and end the use of debt for fiscal gimmicks, New York continues to rely heavily on debt. A

The need for fiscal reform in New York State could not be more compelling. Despite significant spending cuts and revenue increases proposed in the Executive Budget, New York State still faces major projected budget gaps in future years—a cumulative three-year General Fund budget deficit that could exceed $30 billion through State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2013-14.

New York’s dairy farms are a vital part of the upstate economy. Dairy industry losses in local communities have a ripple effect throughout their economies, negatively impacting local businesses that provide supplies or services to dairy farms, and the property and sales tax base.

Agriculture is important to New York State’s economy, and takes place in almost every region of the State.

Wall Street bonuses paid to New York City securities industry employees rose by 17 percent to $20.3 billion in 2009.

The Executive Budget released in January 2010 proposed to roll the projected $500 million current year General Fund deficit into State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2010-11.

County sales tax collections (not including New York City) declined by 5.9 percent in 2009 compared to 2008. Fifty-three of 57 counties had sales tax declines.

County Sales Tax Collections 2007-2009 - Including New York City - pdf

The current recession has had a significant impact on New York State’s residents. Jobs have been lost in virtually all industries in New York State, and the unemployment rate reached 9 percent in December 2009—a rate last seen in April 1983.

The Executive has proposed a spending plan for State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2010-11 that relies heavily on recurring spending cuts and revenue actions to produce a cash balanced budget, including provisions to roll a projected current year deficit forward.

In the wake of the events of September 11, 2001, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) initiated intense planning efforts to determine how to best protect its customers and key assets from any future terrorist incident.

New York City lost 110,000 jobs (2.9 percent) between October 2008 and October 2009, which has caused a sharp drop in utilization of the MTA’s transit facilities (e.g., subways, buses, and bridges and tunnels).

New York City has always been a gateway to opportunity for people from around the world. Successive waves of immigration created a melting pot of cultures that left its mark on the City’s history and its neighborhoods.

Spanish | Russian | Chinese | Korean | Haitian-Creole

The recent closure of the Lake Champlain Bridge in Essex County (also known as the Crown Point Bridge) highlights the importance of New York's bridges to the regional economies in which they are located. Currently, there are 93 bridges in use in New York State with a safety rating at or below that given to the Lake Champlain Bridge prior to its closure.

Bridges in use with a safety rating at or below 3.375 - pdf