With chip-maker Micron Technology set to pull down the largest taxpayer subsidy in New York state history, a new report from the Empire Center looks at the other types of special treatment the company is receiving, and challenges other New York businesses to ask the question: what would Micron get? Read More
Albany, NY — Governor Hochul's budget would allow Medicaid spending to continue spiraling at double-digit rates despite a growing economy and the threat of deep cuts in federal aid, warns Bill Hammond, Empire Center senior fellow f Read More
Two New York Police Department retirees each collected total retirement benefits of more than $600,000 last year—a new record high for the NYPD, according to data posted on SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s government transparency website. However, unlike the pension systems covering all other public employees in New York State, the New York City Police Pension Fund refuses to identify its top two pensioners, or any of its 53,215 NYPD retirees receiving benefit payments that totaled $3.3 billion last year. Read More
New Yorkers by a margin of more than two-to-one said they aren’t getting their money’s worth from taxes they pay in the state, according to recent polling by the Empire Center for Public Policy in Albany. Read More
The Empire Center filed a pair of lawsuits this week charging the state Health Department with improperly withholding public records in violation of the Freedom of Information Law. Read More
A central provision of New York state law — its prohibition on public-employee strikes — is at risk of breaking into pieces, as Gov. Hochul frantically tries to tape the shards back together. Read More
Perhaps the most damning commentary on Gov. Hochul’s Medicaid spending plan — which made up roughly half of the $252 billion state budget she released Tuesday — was the silence of the attack dogs. Last year, the hospital lobby spent millions on TV ads falsely accusing Hochul of “cutting” the state-run health plan, which covers 7 million lower-income New Yorkers. This year, the ad campaign has gone quiet, a sign she is giving hospitals everything they could want and more. Read More
What was expected to be a mundane state-ordered study into how Albany doles out cash to local school districts turns out to be required reading for New York taxpayers — and state lawmakers. Read More
Fans of ’s “Medicare at Home” proposal should study up on New York’s bloated home healthcare system, which covers about 850,000 people. Its large scale and rapid growth embody a Read More
Gov. Hochul’s overhaul of the reached a milestone last week when she named a Georgia-based company as the winning bidder to be the program’s statewide “fiscal intermediary” — and to replace that currently handle those duties. The Read More
Testimony of Bill Hammond Senior Fellow for Health Policy, Empire Center for Public Policy Before the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committees February 11, 2025 Read More
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmhFZr5ftxs FULL WRITTEN TESTIMONY: Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback on the Foundation Aid Formula. As a parent of New York City schoolchildren, the Vice Pres 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
Testimony of Bill Hammond Senior Fellow for Health Policy, Empire Center for Public Policy Before the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committees January 23, 2024 Read More
Testimony of Bill Hammond Senior Fellow for Health Policy, Empire Center for Public Policy Before the Committees on Health, Mental Health, People with Disabilities, Higher Education, and Labo Read More