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Good news to cap off Sunshine Week: at least some local government and school officials are working to make their websites more useful and informative. Read More

The New York State Senate spent $332,419 over a six-month period on offices vacated by two senators who had resigned, according to data posted today on SeeThroughNY.net, the Empire Center’s transparency website. Read More

Throughout New York State, no public document has a greater impact on tax burdens and educational performance than the local teacher union contract. Yet few school districts have made any effort to share these contracts with taxpayers — and so the Empire Center has stepped into the breach by doing it for them. Read More

Binghamton had the highest effective property tax rate of any city in New York as of 2013, according to the Empire Center’s latest annual Benchmarking NY report. Read More

The Empire Center is participating in "Sunshine Week," a nationwide effort to promote government transparency. Check back during the week to see our latest releases. Read More

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey employed the three highest-paid police officers in New York State during 2014, new data show. Read More

New York's local property tax cap would be made permanent under the Senate Republican version of a new state budget. From the taxpayers' perspective, it's very encouraging to see the Senate make a high-profile move to line up on this issue beside Gov. Cuomo, who already has promised to seek the cap's permanent enactment. Read More

New York City's welfare caseloads are expanding again—a deliberate and predictable outcome of Mayor Bill De Blasio's policies, as Manhattan Institute's Steve Eide points out in his new "Poverty and Progress in New York" report. Read More