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   For E.J. McMahon, director of the conservative Empire Center for New York State Policy at the Manhattan Institute, state government’s current fiscal predicament is reminiscent of 2002 and the late 1980s/early 1990s. But overspending, rather than a poor economy, bears the [...]

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   Gov. David Paterson spoke briefly about his plans to give a statewide address tomorrow on the state’s growing fiscal crisis. The governor, who commented after a meeting of the New York City Financial Control Board, gave [...]

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   Voting-rights advocates have been predicting New York would not be able to roll out new voting machines by September 2009, as ordered by federal court, but the state Board of Elections has now made it official. In its [...]

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   Gov. David Paterson signed a bill today to help livery cab drivers in New York City, Westchester and Nassau County. It establishes clear rules to determine when the drivers are considered employees or independent contractors of livery [...]

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Gov. David Paterson mixed in a few vetoes with approvals of dozens of new laws in recent days. Three of the bills were sponsored by Sen. Thomas Morahan, R-New City. They would have:

  —Created a housing waiting list for individuals with psychiatric disabilities. [...]

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   New York and five other Great Lakes states, along with several environmental groups, won a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today over commercial ships dumping contaminated ballast water into the lakes. The court decision prohibits large vessels and [...]

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   New York State United Teachers are striking out in an expensive way at proposals to implement a 4 percent annual cap in the growth of school property taxes. The union, which has about 600,000 members, is against a tax [...]

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   States around the country had spent 67 percent by the end of 2007 of the nearly $3 billion the federal government handed out to update voting systems, New York had only used up 7.43 of the $220 million it received. [...]

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   Four days after leaving his state Senate post and a month after stepping down from his powerful Senate majority leader position, 79-year-old Joseph Bruno of Brunswick, Rensselaer County, is setting up shop in the private sector. Bruno was a senator from [...]

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DiNapoli just announced that he revoked one attorney’s membership and rescinded service credit of four others in the state pension system. The actions came as part of a continuing investigation of attorneys who are being reported as employees of school districts and [...]