E.J. McMahon

Writer & public policy analyst focused on state & local issues, especially in NY. Adjunct Fellow @ManhattanInst.

[E.J. McMahon @EjmEj]

Cuomo grossly exaggerated NY budget shortfall in 2020-21—& got billions in unneeded federal stimulus $$$.
“This budget will set the trajectory for the state for the next 10 yrs,” he said when FY22 plan was enacted.
Unfortunately, he was probably right.
https://t.co/Mo0XuARfL4

[Steven Fulop @StevenFulop]

An obvious win tor Miami and in many ways at the expense of Chicago and NYC - I think this is obvious, but worth saying: when companies relocate or build major new hubs, the impact goes far beyond employees, taxes and direct economic activity.

Civic investment and philanthropy follow too. Those dollars don’t necessarily double when a company expands elsewhere - they increasingly get shared or redirected.

$2 billion of Ken Griffin’s $3 billion gift will build Carnegie Mellon’s new Miami campus. That is an enormous win for Miami - and a reminder of the broader opportunity cost for places like Chicago and New York when corporate gravity shifts elsewhere.

[Ken Girardin @PolicyEngineer]

This is what multiple rounds of state bailouts, without meaningful reforms, buys. Among the highlights in this damning audit: Albany burned through $81M in ARPA money, didn't treat it as temporary, ran out of it, and then appropriated non-existent ARPA money.

[Michael Brendan Dougherty @michaelbd]

Did Microsoft Word pay into the pensions of typewriter manufacturers?

[E.J. McMahon @EjmEj]

@MrDanielBuck New York did both, however.

[Doug Lemov @Doug_Lemov]

When you ask smart people (teachers) to do hard things (teach people in a crazy age) some of them are going to use their intelligence to invent reasons why they should not have to do what’s hard & risky. Most people know better than to believe or publish them. But the ny times has to get literally everything wrong when it comes to education, apparently on principle.

[New York Energy Alliance @NYEnergyAllies]

Public Power NY and DSA are celebrating NYPA's biggest solar deal yet. Here's what the state actually bought.

Rich Road Solar is a 240-megawatt project in St. Lawrence County. It won a state contract in 2021, then let it lapse as costs rose. On Monday, NYPA took a 51% stake. EDF, the private developer, keeps the other 49%.

This isn't a one-off. We matched every project in NYPA's renewables plan against state records. 20 of its 29 private partnerships are projects whose earlier state deals had already fallen through. NYPA's own plan calls it "Investigating 'At-Risk' Projects."

The pitch for public power was that state-owned solar would make money, and that money would lower your bill. NYPA's own numbers say otherwise. New solar costs "at least $100" per megawatt-hour to produce. The market pays "less than $50." The difference comes out of your electric bill for 20 years, through the same state contracts private projects get. For Rich Road, the state won't disclose the price until the plant is running.

The bill credits that were promised? They come from a share of project revenue that NYPA's board chooses. The state set no minimum. Whatever comes back is a slice of what ratepayers paid in first.

Rich Road is 1.6% of the 15 gigawatts the campaign says New York needs. Getting there means doing this about 61 more times.

There are no profits to redistribute. There's a bill for New Yorkers. Read our investigation linked in the comments.

[Robert Pondiscio @rpondiscio]

Hey, I've got it! What if we passed a law mandating standardized tests in reading and math?? For *every* kid, every year!

[E.J. McMahon @EjmEj]

The governor who signed the bill legalizing euthanasia in NY makes an announcement linked to "Suicide Prevention Month."
(Irony was the first victim of "aid-in-dying".)
https://t.co/X2yr4FQtht

[Robert Pondiscio @rpondiscio]

This is why I’m dismissive when teachers are assigned Paolo Freire. It didn’t turn me into a Communist. It turned me into someone who resented my ed school for wasting my time and not helping me be effective.

[Robert Pondiscio @rpondiscio]

"Social justice theory assumes concentrating disadvantaged children in the same schools concentrates disadvantage. Maybe so. But someone still has to teach fractions."

My latest on the Nikole Hannah-Jones lessons we're missing.

https://t.co/duSTjjY2Bp

[Nicole @nicolegelinas]

I mean, you could say the same thing about any intractable issue. It's a signal that this administration is just not all that interested. Status quo fine. Blame Robert Moses. Problem solved.

[Ken Girardin @PolicyEngineer]

Never forget how NY's main energy policy was crafted in 2019 by climate-obsessed suburbanites, for whom the well-documented air quality issues in NYC were an afterthought.

[Jeff Coltin @JCColtin]

Cuomo introduced the Covid Mountain poster at the peak of his own political life. City & State remixed the iconic artwork to show his own rise and fall.

[Ken Girardin @PolicyEngineer]

This is the system that NYS DOL: knew needed to be replaced (in 2017!), didn't fix in time for COVID, and paid billions improperly. Then DOL stonewalled the state's own investigators. Gov. Hochul should have fired people over this.
https://t.co/lLfOFpVQyw

[Kite & Key Media @kiteandkeymedia]

The good news: the United States imports 72% less oil from the Middle East than it did in the '70s.

The bad news: that matters less than you think.

[E.J. McMahon @EjmEj]

The average price/gallon of home heating fuel in New York State is up 70% from a year ago, per NYSERDA data. The hike is even larger in the Capital District (+80%) and Central NY (+77%). We’re talking equivalent to $645 per home tank fill-up.

[Ken Girardin @PolicyEngineer]

NY's prison system is still a mess. One facility (Marcy Correctional) had an 85.9 percent "incident rate," meaning ~86 workers-comp injuries per 100 full-time employees in a year.

https://t.co/U7jNigdsXW

[Robert Pondiscio @rpondiscio]

"Najya didn’t fail to learn fractions because her classmates were black. Her teacher didn’t repeatedly fail to show up because the school was segregated. Assignments didn’t go unread, unassessed or ungraded because affluent children attended elsewhere. Leadership failed to ensure that the basic functions of schooling occurred reliably. These are failures of institutional competence and a devastating challenge to Ms. Hannah-Jones’s theory of change."

Yours truly for the @WSJ

https://t.co/nTKUDmHptm