Reports

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.

The Office of the State Comptroller received 20,867 contract transactions, including both new contracts and contract amendments, valued at $88.37 billion in the 2017 calendar year. The average time from submission to final sign-off was 7.5 days.

Securities industry profits rose dramatically in 2017 for the second consecutive year and the average bonus paid to industry employees in New York City jumped 17 percent to reach $184,220.

The Rockaways is located in the southernmost section of Queens on the Rockaway Peninsula. Superstorm Sandy, which struck New York City on October 29, 2012, damaged thousands of area homes and businesses, and displaced thousands of families.

In 2017, the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) had its worst on-time performance in 18 years. An estimated 9.2 million riders were inconvenienced by trains that were late, canceled at the terminal before departing, or terminated en route before reaching their destinations.

New York City’s economy is strong and continues to post solid job gains. It added 715,000 jobs between 2009 and 2017, making this the largest and longest job expansion in the post–World War II period. After adding 81,000 jobs in 2017, employment reached 4.4 million, 615,000 more than the prerecession peak. More jobs were added in the boroughs outside of Manhattan than in any other expansion.

Recent actions at the federal level to undercut crucial environmental protections remind us once again that we can’t take our environmental quality and successes over the past decades for granted.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the legislation that created New York State’s Environmental Protection Fund (EPF) – a development well worth noting. The Fund is one of the State’s most important vehicles for making capital investments to preserve open space, protect water quality, and improve parks and waterfronts all across New York.

New York City is undergoing its largest and longest job expansion since World War II. More than 700,000 jobs have been added during the past eight years (a gain of nearly 19 percent), pushing employment to uncharted levels.

The federal government has long been a key partner in New York State’s efforts to deliver essential public services.

Property tax exemptions can be a valuable tool to improve the affordability of housing for certain populations, fuel economic growth or encourage the adoption of energy-smart technologies. This report examines the amount and variety of property tax exemptions in New York State outside of New York City. It also looks at the specific points in the process where local governments can exercise some discretion, including the types of exemptions offered, how to ensure that exemptions are properly awarded and the use of alternative methods for raising revenue.

Local sales tax collections for calendar year 2017 totaled $16.6 billion, an increase of $620 million, or 3.9 percent, from the previous year. This marks the highest year-over-year growth since 2013. 

The Office of the New York State Comptroller’s Fiscal Stress Monitoring System (FSMS) measures fiscal stress in school districts each year. This report summarizes results of school district scores for the 2016-17 school fiscal year, the fifth annual release of FSMS scores.

Every day, New York City’s eight million residents face a mix of urban noise—street traffic, construction, emergency vehicles, buses, subways and air traffic are just a few examples—which, at best, poses an annoyance and, at worst, impacts quality of life.

In 2017, OSC completed 23 audits of expenses submitted to SED by preschool special education providers. These audits have cumulatively identified over $12.5 million in recommended disallowances, or about 3 percent of the total claimed expenses of $454 million for the audit period. 

On November 21, 2017, the City of New York released a modification to its four-year financial plan covering fiscal years 2018 through 2021 (“the November Plan”). The November Plan includes modest changes to the City’s revenue and expenditure forecasts for FY 2018 based on trends during the first four months of the fiscal year, a citywide savings program, and savings from better-than-expected pension fund investment earnings in FY 2017.