The 2018 Annual Report on Local Governments highlights the very difficult fiscal environment under which local officials are expected to fulfill their obligations to the people they serve, as well as outlining the significant steps OSC is taking to assist in these efforts.

Local sales tax collections in New York State were $17.5 billion in 2018, a 5.3 percent increase over the previous calendar year and the third consecutive year that growth in collections improved. Certain economic factors may be contributing to this improvement--more than 62,000 additional New York residents were employed in 2018, total wages for the first two quarters increased by nearly 5.7 percent compared to the same period in the prior year, consumer confidence has remained high and consumer spending has been mostly steady throughout the year.

Under legislation passed in 2005, which established a cap on local Medicaid costs, counties needed to decide by September 2007 to either keep the Medicaid cap or exchange a percentage of their sales tax revenues.

The purpose of this report is to help shed light on how town special improvement districts are structured, how they operate, and what fiscal burden they impose on property owners.

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.

This report examines some of the various options proposed to reduce local property tax growth.

Many of New York’s local governments are still struggling with the effects of the recent recession. The following report takes a look at how some of the drivers of fiscal stress have affected counties, cities, towns, and villages.

Local sales tax collections grew by $650 million, or 5 percent, from 2010 to 2011, compared to a growth rate of 9.9 percent between 2009 and 2010. However, nearly a third of the 2010 growth was attributable to a sales tax rate increase in New York City. Without this, growth would have been about 7 percent. | [read county-by-county report - pdf]

Although total local sales tax collections have grown each quarter since the end of the 2008-2009 recession, the rate of this growth has shown a downward overall trend. [read county-by-city data - pdf]

Local sales tax growth was slower in 2014 than in any year since the 2008-2009 recession, in part due to slow growth in the first quarter of the year. Long Island collections declined, some upstate counties had strong growth due to increased sales tax rates, and New York City's growth was relatively strong. | [read county-by-county data - pdf]