From the NY Times:Last December, the State Legislature passed a new law aimed at making the long inscrutable agencies more transparent and reining in their spending. Now, a state office given more power to oversee the authorities has issued its first report.
And the results do not seem all that encouraging — at least to New York taxpayers.
New York’s public authorities racked up more than $17 billion in new debt in 2009 and many failed to comply with the reforms contained in the new law, according to the report released this month by the Independent Authorities Budget Office.
The $17 billion in new debt brings the total debt accrued by authorities to $133 billion, the report states. The largest contributors to the total debt are the Dormitory Authority, which accounted for more than $38 billion, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which contributed more than $28 billion.
More than 140 authorities failed to provide budget reports to the Independent Authorities Budget Office and 175 did not provide annual reports, the report said.
3 comments:
A very interesting report. If you have time, I suggest the read. I'm sure you'll find a few things to boil your blood.
I found this interesting...
The fifth largest debtor agency at 8.4 million dollars in 2009. The NYS Environmental Facilities Corporation. And the purpose of this agency?
From their website...
"The New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation (EFC) administers the New York State Minority and Women’s Business Program (M/WBE). Through the W/MBE, minority and women-owned businesses and employees are afforded equal access to contracting opportunities on projects that receive funding from the New York State Revolving Funds (SRFs)."
Ha, look at the CCRB. What a joke.
You can't have oversight of these agencies, they always find loopholes to circumvent whatever it is they need to bypass.
You can't have oversight of these agencies,
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And if you do, the cost of running an oversight program (office space, equipment, staff, etc) is equal or greater than the savings they would create.
Simplest solution? Break the unions.
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