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REPORT: STATE, LOCAL GOVERNMENT DEBT AT $227B:

In the latest attack on the finances of the state's public authorities, a Manhattan-based watchdog group Tuesday urged that their ability to borrow money be reined in.

The group, the Citizens Budget Commission, put the total borrowed by state and local governments and authorities in New York at $227 billion. Authorities borrowed $166 billion, or almost three-quarters of the total.

The state government alone is $45 billion in debt - about $10 billion more than it can safely afford, according to the report.

A debt that high has the effect of "placing New York in a danger zone and contributing to an uncompetitive tax burden," according to the commission.
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The state's 583 public authorities are government-created and controlled agencies that are legally independent. Among the largest are the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs subways, buses, trains, tunnels and bridges in the New York City metropolitan area, and the Thruway Authority, which operates the 544-mile-long toll-road system that goes from New York City north to Albany, west to Buffalo and south to the Pennsylvania state line.
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Using the authorities to borrow the money rather than having state government do it directly gets around the requirement that voters approve borrowing and is known as "back-door borrowing."

Instead of requiring voter approval for the debt, the report says, the state should limit borrowing to what is affordable - a calculation based on how much it has already borrowed and other long-term obligations, like pension costs.