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Medicaid and other healthcare issues dominated the most-read posts on the Empire Center's NYTorch blog in 2019—a year that's ended under the shadow of a major state Medicaid budget overrun first disclosed on this site. Read More

Relations between Pat Foye, who was picked by Cuomo to run the MTA in March, and Tony Utano, president of TWU Local 100, grew adversarial in the spring. In May, the agency briefly sent police officers to stake out agency timeclocks after the Empire Center for Public Policy published a report detailing a $418 million spike in overtime, a 16% rise over the previous year. Read More

To fight crime and fare evasion in New York City subways, the state Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to hire 500 more officers for its police department—an unprecedented expansion of what's already one of the largest police forces based in New York State. As of 2018, the MTA Police employed a total of 773 officers, including new hires and officers who retired or otherwise left the payroll during the year, according to records posted at SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center's transparency website.  MTA Police pay averaged $131,959, including average overtime of $34,936.  The number of MTA Police officers was the highest in at least six years; in 2013, there 99 fewer total officers employed by the department. Read More

The Empire Center's annual release of Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) payroll data on the SeeThroughNY transparency website made an especially big splash—highlighting excessive overtime costs at the LIRR. Read More

“That’s one heck of an incentive,” said E.J. McMahon, research director for the Empire Center for Public Policy, the organization that publicized the MTA’s alarmingly high overtime rate in an April MTA payroll report. Read More

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s top earner last year raked in a budget-busting $344,147 in overtime — on top of his $117,499 salary, according to data released Tuesday by the Empire Center fiscal-watchdog group. Read More

Cuomo and Schwartz have been decrying overtime abuse at the MTA ever since the Empire Center first reported in April that the authority had seen a 16 percent rise in its use. Read More

Wednesday, MTA Chairman Pat Foye said the agency has OK’d a plan for outside consultants to do a 60-day analysis of its payroll systems. The review won’t focus specifically on overtime, but it comes just weeks after the Empire Center reported soaring levels of OT at the LIRR. Read More

Government watchdogs and transit advocates have put new pressure on the MTA to tackle its labor costs after fiscal watchdog group the Empire Center revealed it spent $1.3 billion on overtime in 2018. Read More

The heightened focus on overtime follows a report by the Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative, nonprofit think tank based in Albany, that revealed six of the top 10 earners at the MTA last year were LIRR laborers, whose senior status allowed them to significantly increase their take-home pay by piling on overtime. The MTA's highest-paid employee last year, LIRR chief measurement officer Thomas Caputo, made $344,147 in overtime on top of his base salary of $117,499, according to the report. Read More

When it comes to outrageous pensions and overtime at the MTA and public entities, we find ourselves at a crossroad. Thanks to the Empire Center for Public Policy's exposé of a railroad worker soaking up $344, 000 in overtime, the iron is suddenly hot for change. Read More

The source, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, said federal prosecutors requested "payroll and other records" for the workers about two and a half weeks ago, shortly after the release of an Empire Center for Public Policy report detailing the authority's payroll in 2018. Read More