A federal jobs bill expected to pass next week in Washington is expected to bring $2.3 billion in budget aid to New York state, and another $700 million to help counties and New York City.
Sen. Chuck Schumer says the aid could help the state and counties to avoid cuts in spending, layoffs, or increased taxes. [...]
With 59 largely unenthusiastic ayes, the State Senate on Wednesday approved a package of bills meant to combat political corruption and require elected officials to disclose more about their outside financial interests.
Despite more than three hours of debate and grousing from many senators that they felt the bills were at best a half-step toward meaningful [...]
Gov. David Paterson today signed the Green Jobs/Green New York Act, a program that creates revolving loans and green jobs training programs for weatherization projects.
The loan program is expected to attract middle-class homeowners and small businesses that will pay back the loans from money saved on their energy bills. Loans will be capped at $13,000 [...]
State Assemblyman Jim Tedisco authored a bill requiring rich New York inmates to pay state and federal governments the cost of housing them in prison.
“We have a lot of people in our society who have extensive personal wealth and who have broken their [...]
Mayor Bloomberg has vetoed a bill to lift the residency requirement for thousands of civil servants, including agency lawyers, Housing Authority employees and workers in numerous administrative jobs.
The Council officially received the veto Tuesday and plans to override it at a future session.
The mayor objected to the bill’s two-year city residency requirement before workers can [...]
A bill being pushed by state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to consolidate local governments cleared its first legislative hurdle Tuesday but not before some lawmakers raised objections.
Five members of the 20-member Assembly Local Governments Committee urged caution, saying the proposed petition process to abolish governments could be perverted by nonresidents.
They also called for a larger [...]
A new bill requiring chain pharmacies in the city to provide translation help along with their pills isn’t going down too well with some critics.
The City Council bill calls for pharmacists to speak any foreign language spoken by 1% or more of the people in any community district.
A Department of Consumer Affairs’ representative testified the [...]
