This report explains the features that contribute to the stability of the property tax system. It shows how caps on growth in assessed value can lead to higher assessed values and how assessments move through the pipeline and how the pipieline grew through 2008, the year of the downturn.
This article presents the budget challenges faced by the City in the upcoming fiscal year. The City faces challenges arising from rising pension costs and the expiration of federal funding, which makes it more difficult to keep the budget balanced.
This report compares schools proposed for closing against other schools. The schools proposed for closing are found to be low performing, with below average student performance. However, there is no guarantee that a closing school will be replaced by a more successful one.
The city is currently in relatively good fiscal condition, due to steps to cut costs and raise revenue. However, the Mayor's budget does not address potential new problems, leaving pressure against City Hall to ensure the preservation of programs that will be affected by these problems. Economic uncertainties threaten the city and can affect the city's employment growth and tax revenues.
This report lists the budget options the City faces after the recession. The recession caused the loss of a significant amount of state aid and federal cutbacks, as well as growing pension and health expenditures, debt service, and other costs. These problems must be rectified and the options listed are potential solutions.
For school-aged children living in temporary housing--homeless shelters, doubled up, or other transitory situations--getting to and succeeding in school can be a greater challenge than for their classmates. This report explores those challenges, with a particular focus on the high absentee rate among students living in shelters and some of the factors contributing to their low attendance. In addition to IBO's usual quantitative emphasis, this report includes the perceptions and insights of homeless families; teachers, principals, and other school staff; and central and district education department administrators captured through roughly 100 interviews and 10 focus groups.
Ten years ago, following the public outcry after the death of Nixzmary Brown, the Administration for Children's Services undertook an effort to increase staffing and lower caseloads among the caseworkers responsible for investigating reports of child abuse and neglect. In this report IBO examines staffing, caseloads, length of time on the job, funding and spending, and other aspects of this effort in the years since its implementation.