School districts have used more than 400 special meetings—votes held outside the regular May and November election days—since 2011 to approve nearly $9 billion in spending, including about $2 billion last year. Read More
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As the long-time top aide to former Governor Andrew Cuomo, Melissa DeRosa ought to have useful information to share about the state's pandemic response – especially about what went wrong and how the state could be be Read More
This week, Empire Center Research Director Ken Girardin and Senior Fellow Bill Hammond delve into the complexities of Medicaid and its implications for New Yorkers. Video: Read More
A health-care commission that is supposed to be helping the state control soaring Medicaid costs – which Governor Hochul promised in January and described as "under way" last month – appears not to exist. Read More
Comments by Bill Hammond Senior Fellow for Health Policy, Empire Center for Public Policy To the Department of Financial Read More
State regulators should drop plans to mandate a $10.18 "dispensing fee" for each prescription filled by a pharmacy, the Empire Center's Bill Hammond said in comments submitted Monday to the Department of Financial Services. Read More
Changes to New York’s charter-school law championed by Governor Hochul yielded their first results yesterday as five charter schools, which together plan to serve more than 2,300 New York City students, got the green light to open. Read More
New York's Medicaid program ran billions of dollars over budget during the first half of the fiscal year, adding to signs of a brewing fiscal crisis in Albany. According to the Read More