In June the New York City Council voted to approve New York City's budget for fiscal year 2011. The Mayor and the City Council should be commended for passing a budget that responsibly deals with difficult financial realities without raising taxes and by achieving recurring savings of over $1 billion in agency spending.

What ought to be considered a dramatic reversal of a highly praised policy has been buried in an arcane legal change made by the State Legislature at the request of Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

In contrast to the dubious fiscal practices in many areas of its budget, New York's pension system for public employees has been a bright spot. Among the 50 states, New York stands out for consistently setting aside adequate funds to make its employee pension systems fiscally sound.

Power for Jobs was created in 1997 to provide discounted power to approved businesses in the form of lower rates from their local utility companies. Utility companies in the program also receive a tax break on their utility gross receipts tax for the discount they offer on transmission.