Wisconsin is the third state in the last few months to review its regulatory process as a way to energize job creation. Governor Scott Walker this week said the regulatory review would ensure that “only the most necessary rules are implemented so businesses are no longer held back by the costs of overregulation.”
California Governor Jerry Brown wants to save the state $20 million per year by making state employees return taxpayer funded cell phones. In his first executive order as governor, Mr. Brown directed agency and department heads to cut their employees’ cell phones by half. According to the governor’s office, 40 percent of all state employees [...]
Incoming New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo will be giving himself a pay cut as one of first actions in office. The current salary for the Governor is $179,000 and has not changed since 1999. With the pay cut, Governor Cuomo’s salary will drop to just above $170,000. Cuomo has said that he will return [...]
The 2010 mid-term elections saw just over 1600 new state legislators elected to office. The turnover rate reached 30 percent, which represents a 5 percent increase over the 1250 new legislators who took office in 2009. This massive shift adds to the complexities of state policymaking at a time when “new ideas” will have to [...]
It may seem a trivial thing, but a battle for “bed taxes” that has been brewing between state and local tax collectors and the online travel industry for the better part of a decade shows no signs of slowing. Recent actions in Montana, Oklahoma, New York, California, Maryland and elsewhere join four or five dozen [...]
Connecticut is cracking down on unemployment insurance fraud. The state is partnering with the federal government to recover an estimated $2.5 million in restitution from hundreds of people who fraudulently filed unemployment insurance claims. The state will be going after all or part of their federal income tax refunds as a means of recovering the [...]
The Illinois Governor’s Office of Management and Budget has put its statement of revenue and expenditures online. The statement outlines all of the state’s significant financial activities for fiscal year 2010 and the first quarter of 2011. The statement is the most comprehensive financial overview of agency and fund spending available before annual reports are [...]
A handful of governors spoke out Wednesday to lend their support to President Barack Obama’s compromise with Congressional Republicans to extend a number of tax breaks, including controversial cuts for those who make above $250,000 per year. In most statements, governors commended the compromise, while highlighting those cuts that are meant to help the middle-class.
Increased Medicaid enrollment and the end of Recovery Act funding are the leading challenges facing state governors and their budget officers as they look to 2011, a new report indicates. In their twice-annual Fiscal Survey of States, the National Governors Association (NGA) and the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO) say that most states [...]
For the past several months, I have been privileged to be one of 19 people chosen to serve on the Bipartisan Policy Center’s U.S. Debt Reduction Task Force. The Task Force was chaired by former U.S. Senator Peter Domenici, who led the Finance Committee during his 36 years in the Senate, and Dr. Alice Rivlin [...]
