In his continuing effort to fill a slow-news holiday period with advance proposals from his upcoming 2020 State of the State message, Governor Cuomo today dusted off one of Albany's creakiest bipartisan infrastructure fantasies: high-speed passenger rail service. Read More
Our MTA payroll summary was only the second most-viewed SeeThroughNY news release of 2019. To find out which of transparency postings got the most attention this year, scroll through the list of the 2019 Top 10 SeeThroughNY press releases. Read More
A proposed rule under consideration by the U.S. Department of Labor would have the unexpected benefit of letting more New York public employees see how their union dues are spent—and negating a major union’s recent move to escape federal oversight. Read More
Governor Cuomo says that controlling the cost of prescription drugs will be part of his agenda in 2020. Four bills currently awaiting his signature or veto give him a chance to get started on that promise in 2019. Read More
A year after completing its replacement for the Tappan Zee Bridge, and seven years after starting construction on the project, the state Thruway Authority has finally gotten around to proposing a schedule for raising the eastbound-only bridge toll. Read More
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
Governor Andrew Cuomo has vetoed two measures that were legislative priorities for public-sector unions. Read More
Rochester schools are laying off 152 teachers, but there’s little doubt which educators are on the chopping block. Read More
Budget deficit? What budget deficit? With today’s pending recommendation from the Board of Regents, New York's education establishment is united in proposing that state aid to America's best-funded preK-12 public school system be increased next year by at least $2 billion. The figure is nearly double the amount projected in Governor Cuomo's financial plan—which showed the state is running deeply in the red and facing its largest budget shortfall since the Great Recession. Read More
The Cuomo administration has issued a remarkably flimsy, misleading and superficial analysis of the minimum wage increases enacted by New York State since 2013. Read More
In buckling under pressure and threats from Governor Andrew Cuomo, National Grid has firmed up a troubling new normal of regulatory policy in New York State. Read More
The remarkable thing about state's multi-billion-dollar Medicaid crisis is that it is almost entirely the result of the Cuomo administration's own actions. There is no economic downturn or change in federal policy that explains the program's current $4 billion deficit, or its $3 billion projected gap in the next fiscal year, as confirmed in Friday's mid-year update to the state financial plan. Read More