benchmark.final

Benchmarking New York Counties, Cities, Towns and Villages ew York State residents pay some of the highest local taxes in the nation. Until now, however, New Yorkers have had no easy way to N compare basic fiscal measures for the local governments that account for a large share of the taxes they pay. To enable such comparisons, the Empire Center for New York State Policy, a project of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, and the Public Policy Institute, research affiliate of The Business Council of New York State, have calculated effective property tax rates and per-capita values for the spending, debt and tax levels of counties, Government cities, towns and villages throughout the state, excluding only 1New York City. performance should be measured against Derived from statistics gathered annually by the Office of State standards set by Comptroller, the result is a database of measures that taxpayers can use as benchmarks for evaluating local governments. (The competitors and peers. next report in this jointly produced series will add data for Spending, debt and school districts.) taxes are all key Businesses have long known the benefits of benchmarking – indicators taxpayers measuring performance against standards set by competitors care about. and peers. Benchmarks in isolation may say little about the quality of management or public services in different communities. However, by spotlighting differences and trends, the ...