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With Long Island Rail Road workers threatening a strike that could strand hundreds of thousands of commuters, the Empire Center is publishing copies of the labor contracts at the heart of the dispute. Read More

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)’s payroll surpassed $8 billion in 2024 – a 2.6 percent increase since 2023, according to , the Empire Center’s government transparency website. Overtime, as measured using payroll records, tota Read More

The state Legislature approved the last of nine budget bills Thursday evening, 38 days after the start of the fiscal year. Here are some highlights of the fiscal impact of final spending plan: Top lines Read More

Two New York Police Department retirees each collected total retirement benefits of more than $600,000 last year—a new record high for the NYPD, according to data posted on SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s government transparency website. However, unlike the pension systems covering all other public employees in New York State, the New York City Police Pension Fund refuses to identify its top two pensioners, or any of its 53,215 NYPD retirees receiving benefit payments that totaled $3.3 billion last year. Read More

Public employee unions complained loudly when New York's state government workforce shrank during the coronavirus pandemic, using that decrease as pretext to press Governor Hochul and state lawmakers for more hiring and costly giveaways to benefit their members. But the latest data show nearly every state agency has more employees than it did a year ago, and that by at least one key measure, the state workforce is larger than it was before COVID. Read More

Governor Hochul is taking heat after postponing the state’s years-old plan to charge drivers to enter lower Manhattan. As critics slam her for lacking “political courage,” it’s an appropriate time to examine some of the underlying issues that congestion pricing was meant to indirectly mitigate—because many if not most advocates were afraid to touch those issues themselves. And if congestion pricing proponents are to be taken at their word about their concern for MTA finances, or traffic, or air quality, they must show some of the same courage they’ve accused the governor of lacking. Read More

Bills designed to block any change to retiree health coverage for state and local public employees have been introduced repeatedly by legislators in both parties over the past 30 years. But the latest statewide “anti-diminution” measure, inspired by an ongoing controversy in New York City, would be the broadest and most costly yet—and more than two-thirds of state lawmakers are supporting it. Read More

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)’s payroll jumped $663 million, or 9 percent, last year as overtime spending ticked up to a new record and subsidiaries dished out $261 million in retroactive pay, according to data posted today on SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s government transparency website. Read More

Overtime costs at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) last year surged to nearly $1.3 billion, up from $1.1 billion in 2021 according to data posted today on SeeThroughNY. Read More

ALBANY, NY — 2021 for 82,513 New York public authority employees working at 320 different agencies is newly posted on , the Empire Center’s transparency website. The site now contains 2021 payroll data for a total of 172,947 Read More

More than 300 employees were paid at least $100,000 in overtime and at least 734 earned more in overtime than in regular pay at the MTA last year Read More

This paper describes seven core objectives and offers specific policy recommendations toward their accomplishment. It’s by no means an exhaustive list, rather a good place to start work towards an Altered State with a growing economy, a more efficient public sector and new opportunities for an engaged and informed citizenry. Read More