Former Assembly member Richard Brodsky and the Empire Center’s E.J. McMahon have sent a joint letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo, legislative leaders and the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), urging the state to redirect up to $4 billion in unspent financial penalty settlement funds to help finance desperately needed subway repairs as well as highway and bridge work. [Read_more]
A $500,000 grant to support a solar-powered carousel in Buffalo—raising that project’s total taxpayer subsidy to more than $1 million—was among the 1,782 local pork barrel projects awarded grants by state lawmakers in the final hours of this week’s legislative session, as documented in data posted today on SeeThroughNY.net, the Empire Center’s transparency website. [Read_more]
The 48,346-employee payroll of New York City’s fiscally stressed Health and Hospitals Corporation swelled to $2.9 billion last year, a 16 percent jump from $2.5 billion in 2014, according to data added today to SeeThroughNY.net, the Empire Center’s transparency website. [Read_more]
At least 849 public employees have received special permission to collect government paychecks while also collecting public pensions, according to data posted today on SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s transparency website. [Read_more]
Nearly half of the 669 school districts seeking voter approval for budgets on Tuesday, May 16 are presenting spending plans that call for increasing property taxes as high as the 2011 property tax cap law allows, according to an analysis released today by the Empire Center for Public Policy. [Read_more]
Eight employees of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) were paid more than $200,000 in overtime last year, part of a general surge in MTA overtime in 2016, according to data posted today on SeeThroughNY.net, the Empire Center’s transparency website. [Read_more]
The cost of publicly funded construction projects in New York is inflated up to 25 percent by the state’s outdated “prevailing wage” mandate, which requires contractors to pay workers the amounts required by union collective bargaining agreements, according to a report issued today by the Empire Center for Public Policy. [Read_more]
New York’s $163 billion budget, enacted on April 9, authorizes the state to spend at a rate of $5,169 per second during its 2017-18 fiscal year, according to the Empire Center’s updated Spend-O-Meter. [Read_more]
Port Authority of NY and NJ police department employees collected an average of $34,662 in overtime during 2016, up from $29,931 the year before, according to payroll data added today to SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s transparency website. [Read_more]
Federal “block-granting” of Medicaid could have outcomes ranging from a multi-billion dollar gain to a multi-billion loss for New York’s $63 billion program, depending on how such a reform is designed, according to an analysis by the Empire Center’s health policy director, Bill Hammond. [Read_more]
A total of 270 new police, fire, teacher and superintendent contracts were uploaded today to SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s transparency website. [Read_more]
