Eighteen months ago, the Citizens Budget Commission convened a two-day conference of civic and business leaders from across New York State to lay the conceptual groundwork for New York State’s much-needed budget reform.

The conference, held in Palisades, New York, produced The Palisades Principles, which identified the ten principles that should be implemented to achieve true budget reform. The conference and the resulting Palisades Principles helped ignite a public outcry for State budget reform. That led to the State’s passage this year of the first on-time budget in 21 years and to budget deliberations that were more open than ever before.

But much of this year’s improvement was the result of voluntary, informal agreements, and many essential reforms were left unaddressed. Understanding where the reform agenda now stands requires another look at The Palisades Principles and an analysis of what progress has been made to implement them. This report does just that – principle by principle.

Of the 10 principles, four have shown no progress, five have shown some progress, and only one has shown significant progress.