Hannah Adely reports today on LoHud.com - “Even those New Yorkers who get the state’s maximum benefit, like Aliza Garofolo of Dobbs Ferry, said they are barely getting by.

Garofolo, a single mother, had been making $800 a week as a bookkeeper and now gets half that from unemployment checks. She can’t afford the mortgage payment on her two-bedroom co-op, which costs $1,296 a month, and she has cut restaurants, back-to-school clothes and summer camp out of her budget…

Some state lawmakers and union leaders are calling for an increase in unemployment benefits, but reform may rest on the state Legislature’s willingness to ask businesses to give more. Employers now pay unemployment taxes on the first $8,500 in wages, which goes into the state’s unemployment insurance fund. That rate also has remained unchanged since 1998 and is much lower than in New Jersey, Connecticut and other states…

Business advocacy groups have argued that raising taxes would be too great a burden on businesses, some already struggling in the difficult economy.

Maggie Moree, director of federal affairs for the Business Council of New York State, said the state needed to reform the entire unemployment insurance system to address fraud, enforcement and equity, instead of raising taxes alone.

“Just increasing benefits without implementing reforms is not something we would support,” Moree said.”

To read the entire story click here.

While New York’s tax and spend habits seem to have the state on a course to fiscal ruin like California, there is a midwest state that may hold a model for reform and recovery, Indiana.

Gov. Mitch Daniels has turned the Hoosier State around since being elected in 2004.

Kimberley A. Strassel looks at Indiana’s success in the Wall Street Journal .

She writes: “The 60-year-old won in 2004 by promising to achieve one goal. “Every successful enterprise has a very clear strategic purpose. . . . So, we said, all right, the strategic purpose of our administration is to raise the net disposable income of Hoosiers,” which has fallen dramatically in recent decades. “Everything else is just a means to that end.”

Mr. Daniels’s first step toward that goal was cleaning up a state balance sheet that 16 years of Democratic rule had left in bad shape. He turned what was a $700 million hole into a $1 billion surplus, making Indiana one of a handful of states that today remain in the black.

How? “Well, prepared to be dazzled,” he says, with his trademark dry wit. “The answer is that we spent less money than we took in.”

Read more.

Paterson has hands full with state’s fiscal crisis

The following is part of an editorial that was posted on Pressconnects.com

“New York Gov. David Paterson, in effect, reminded the president to mind his own business on Sunday - at least when it comes to deciding who should run for governor in New York next year.

Paterson’s televised remarks that he’ll run in 2010 likely won’t quell the White House’s eagerness to have him back out. But it’s another indication that he isn’t about to be bullied by President Obama’s political advisers, who see the New York governor as a liability because of voters’ disapproval of the way he has handled the state’s finances.

The governor had better fight back if he intends to head state government for the next 15 months. Anything less would have cast him as a lame-duck caretaker until a successor took office in January 2011. New York cannot afford that.

An anticipated budget gap once pegged at about $2 billion is now feared to be headed for $3 billion, and Paterson, as he did last year and during the regular session, will have to take the lead in forcing the Legislature to make tough spending-cut decisions to balance the budget. Revenues - money coming into the state through taxes, fees and other sources - is lagging as much as 35 percent behind what previously had been forecast. Unemployment in the state climbed to 9 percent in August, the highest it has been since 1983.

To read the rest of the editorial click here.

Matthew Daneman reports on today’s Pressconnects.com -”The economic downturn — at least for New York and New Jersey — may have leveled off, according to a new study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The report, “Is the Worst Over? Economic Indexes and the Course of the Recession in New York and New Jersey,” bases its conclusion on a variety of indicators — payrolls, inflation-adjusted earnings, the unemployment rate and average weekly hours worked in the manufacturing sector.

According to the report, the pace of decline slowed in the spring and leveled off by July.
However, any recovery likely will lag what goes on nationally, the report said, as financial firm closures and consolidations indicate employment in financial services may not rebound to pre-recession levels.”

To read the rest of the story click here.

State’s onerous burden on taxpayers must not be increased yet again

The following is an editorial from the Buffalo News.

Sheldon Silver needs to get his mind right. Earlier this month, he said on Fredric U. Dicker’s influential Albany radio program that “I don’t think tax increases are on the table” as the state seeks to close a budget deficit expected to reach at least $3 billion.

But in Thursday’s Buffalo News, the Assembly speaker would not rule out raising taxes. He was right the first time.

More than any individual in Albany, Silver is responsible for the condition of the state budget. With a solid majority in the Assembly, he has more clout than leaders of the fractured Senate or the politically wounded governor.

What is more, Silver exercises complete control over the chamber. Nothing comes up for a floor vote unless he wants it to, and everything that does come up for a vote passes — including the 2009-10 budget. That document did just about everything wrong, and it still did little to control state spending. Hence, the new budget deficit.”

To read the rest of the editorial click here.

Melissa deCordova of the Chenango Evening Sun writes - “Three large chemical spills at a natural gas drilling site in Pennsylvania over the past two weeks – juxtaposed with enthusiasm for what drillers might find in Otsego County this week, where the first official exploration into New York’s shale is underway – will no doubt color the tone of a meeting between Gov. David Paterson and The Business Council of New York State in Rochester on Wednesday.

The Governor is expected to address the opening dinner meeting of the Council, which, later in the week, will include an update on the Marcellus Shale’s potential for boosting the state’s economy. Natural gas companies, landowners and economic developers are all poised to receive the Department of Environmental Conservation’s regulations for hydrofraking into shale on Wednesday as well.”

To read the rest of the story click here.

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To learn more about Marcellus Shale and how it’s development will enhance New York’s economy attend The Business Council’s Annual Meeting 2009. There you will have the opportunity to meet Jenny Levine as she moderates a pannel of experts on Marcellus Shale. For more information click here.

Empire Center Director E.J. McMahon writes in an op-ed today in The New York Post, that New York’s budget crisis is growing worse daily and could reach the point where the state is unable to pay its bills.

McMahon writes, “The stage for this looming disaster was set by the April deal on the 2009-10 budget. Paterson and his fellow Democrats in the Legislature agreed to a noxious stew of tax and fee increases, temporary federal aid and increased spending — all in the face of a severe economic downturn whose full impact had yet to be felt in New York.

Surprise, surprise: The tax hikes have brought in lower-than-projected revenues as the economy continued to weaken. Passage of a federal health-care-reform bill could make matters worse — either by raising federal tax rates on New York’s high-income households, or by increasing the state’s Medicaid spending or some combination of both.

Meanwhile, Paterson disclosed last week that the estimate of this year’s deficit has risen from $2.1 billion to $3 billion. His budget-crunchers were already projecting some cash-flow problems under the lower number; at this rate, New York will be stiffing vendors and inviting a credit-rating downgrade by spring.

California, here we come.”

Read more here.

James T. Madore writes on  Newsday.com - “Gov. David A. Paterson and some lawmakers are raising the specter of furloughs - and even layoffs - of state workers to help close the growing budget deficit, as other big states have done.

“We’ve not had to furlough or lay off any workers, but the means of balancing budgets are becoming less and less available, and everything is on the table,” Paterson said recently. “We are going to have to make sure New York can still meet its obligations, that we don’t delay payments which would injure our financial status.”

New York has been the exception among large states in not slashing its 200,000-person payroll. Four states and the District of Columbia have fired workers to close budget gaps. New Jersey, Connecticut and seven others issued furloughs. Fourteen states, including California, did both.

Paterson has acted modestly so far, in part because of the clout of state employee unions. This year’s record $131.8-billion budget, already $3 billion in the red, was balanced initially by a workforce reduction producing savings of $260.3 million over two years. That goal was met by cutting 3,722 jobs, largely through attrition and abolishing funded vacancies. Barely 1,000 people took buyouts of $20,000 despite intense lobbying.”

To read the rest of the story click here.

Albert R. Hunts writes in the Sunday New York Times - “Uwe Reinhardt, the eminent Princeton University economist, says that dueling political claims notwithstanding, the health care overhaul that Americans want is clear.

Patients should make their own decisions, and insurance companies and the government shouldn’t interfere under the guise of “cost-effectiveness.” Families’ out-of-pocket payments should be limited, and premiums and taxes kept low.

Also, insurance should be provided to all Americans with no mandates, and Medicare’s spiraling costs must be controlled without any curbs on payments to hospitals or doctors.

And, of course, health care should never be rationed; that is “un-American.” Every one of those choices would poll well, and many are common refrains from politicians in the current debate. Together, they constitute the proverbial free lunch that would bankrupt the government, insurance companies and hospitals.

Congress is close to passing an overhaul of the nation’s health care system, a monumental task since it would be achieved in such a blizzard of misinformation that it’s no wonder the public has such unrealistic expectations.

To read the rest of the story click here.

To learn more about how national health care reform could effect your business attend The Business Council’s Forum 2009: Federal Health Care Reform, November 9, 2009.

Steve Lohr or the New York Times writes - ” The nation’s drive toward computerized medical records is getting a push from big hospitals, which hope not only to improve patient care but to gain an edge on competitors.

And an effort to be announced on Monday by a big New York regional hospital group may be the most ambitious effort of this type yet — a sizable investment intended as a linchpin in the group’s $400 million commitment to digitize patient records throughout its system, including 13 hospitals.”

North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System plans to offer its 7,000 affiliated doctors subsidies of up to $40,000 each over five years to adopt digital patient records. That would be in addition to federal support for computerizing patient records, which can total $44,000 per doctor over five years.

The federal program includes $19 billion in incentive payments to computerize patient records, as a way to improve care and curb costs. And the government initiative has been getting reinforcement from hospitals. Many are reaching out to their affiliated physicians — doctors with admitting privileges, though not employed by the hospital — offering technical help .”

To read the rest of  the story click here.