Seven Port Authority of New York and New Jersey employees last year collected more than $200,000 each in overtime as total overtime surged, according to 2023 payroll data posted today on SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s government transparency website. The five-year increase in overtime far exceeds the Port Authority's payroll savings from phasing out bridge and tunnel toll collectors over the same period. Read More
Empire Center founding senior fellow E.J. McMahon showed the New York City Charter Revision Commission how the charter can be improved to better protect the public fisc. Read More
In this episode of Messages of Necessity, Zilvinas Silenas, Executive Director at the Empire Center, has a conversation with Ken Girardin, the Empire Center Research Director. Together, they delve into the newly released Empire Index Poll and explore Read More
This is the month when New Yorkers are due to finally receive an official report on the state's response to the Covid-19 pandemic, one of the deadliest disasters in state history. Read More
Join us for our latest ThinkNY webinar, where we’ll delve into Proposition 1, a proposed amendment to the equal protection clause of the state Constitution. Cam Macdonald will discuss its disputed status on the ballot and how it got here. We’l 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
Three in five New Yorkers (60 percent) say the state is on the wrong track, up from 55 percent earlier this year, according to the latest Empire Index poll of registered voters by the Empire Center for Public Policy. Read More
New York state lawmakers in recent years have surrendered some of their policymaking and taxing powers to the executive branch. With the 2024 legislative session coming to close, they’re poised to go even further and turn those powers over to an organization outside of government entirely. Read More