Consumer-driven health plans and legislative vote tracking
will be among the topics addressed during The Business Council’s
Government Affairs Council (GAC) meeting Friday, September
24.
The GAC meeting will take place at The Sagamore in Bolton
Landing as part of The Council's Annual Meeting
ALBANY—The Business Council today published a new “School
Honor Roll” listing 226 elementary schools and 16 middle schools
across New York State that improved the most on the state’s standardized
tests between 1999 and 2003.
Schools that improved their average scores by at least 20 percent in
both math and English Language Arts (ELA) tests on both the fourth and
eighth grades made the honor roll
ALBANY— For the fourth year in a row, a significant
majority of employers in New York State were hit with double-digit increases
in health-insurance premiums this year, and employers continue the struggle
to minimize the damage this trend does to their competitiveness, The Business
Council’s latest annual survey of employers’ compensation practices shows
Standard
& Poor's Ratings Services warned that continuing "structural
imbalances" in New York State's budget, including a projected
$6.1 billion gap in 2005, may lead to a downgrading of the
state's credit rating
More than 50 percent of taxes collected in 2004 will be paid by business owners,
according to a new study from the Tax Foundation.
“Individually owned business pay the lion’s share
of all individual income tax collections,” the report
said. “We estimate that in 2004, business owners will
pay 54
The United Way of New York State is urging New York’s
employers and individuals to make donations to support relief
efforts for victims of Hurricane Charley in Florida.
United Way professionals and volunteers in Florida, some
of whom lost their own homes when the hurricane swept through
southwest and central Florida, have been working since the
disaster at the forefront of the efforts to address immediate
needs and identify other needs that will take months or years
to fix
ALBANY—U.S.
Rep. Amo Houghton (R-Corning), the only former CEO of a Fortune 500 company
serving in the U.S. House of Representatives and a founder and early leader
of The Business Council, will receive the Corning Award for Excellence
for 2004.
The award,
which is sponsored by Corning Incorporated, will be presented Wednesday,
Sept
Governor
Pataki announced he has vetoed $1.8 billion from the budget
approved by the Legislature, and said the state will still
face a projected budget gap of $6.1 billion in the fiscal
year starting next April 1
Business
Council President Daniel B. Walsh urged Governor Pataki to
veto spending that the Legislature added to this year's budget,
and to insist on cost-saving reforms to Medicaid.
"You
are absolutely right about the budget approved by the Legislature:
It includes too much spending, and too little reform,"
Walsh wrote in an August 18 letter to the Governor
The state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC)
has adopted “emergency" regulations to restore
limits on industrial emissions that were overturned by a state
Supreme Court in May.
DEC’s own estimates showed that these stringent emission
rules, which will require additional reductions of sulfur
dioxide and nitrogen emissions at power plants, will raise
statewide wholesale power rates by 5 percent, according Ken
Pokalsky, director of environmental and economic development
programs for The Council