Month: June 2015

Sheldon Silver, who lost his seat in the State Assembly after he was convicted of seven federal felonies on Monday, has filed paperwork to receive a state pension. Analysts at the Empire Center, a fiscally conservative think tank, said it could be $98,010 a year. Read More

With his career in public service over, ex-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver promptly filed for retirement Tuesday — a day after his conviction on corruption charges. Silver stands to get a pension of as much as $98,000 a year because of his 44 years of public service and a salary that had reached $121,000 when he was collecting his base salary of $79,500 a year and $41,500 as speaker, the Empire Center estimated. Read More

Governor Andrew Cuomo has a chance to make good on a promise to New York taxpayers by signing two bills that would help make information more accessible for public consumption. Read More

It will be déjà vu all over again Monday for a Brooklyn Supreme Court judge, as lawyers for the city and a municipal pension fund argue that basic data about correction officer retirement payouts should be secret. The session before Justice Peter Sweeney will be the latest legal stonewalling in cases that stretch back almost six years to the day that the Empire Center, a taxpayer watchdog, filed a Freedom of Information Law request for the names of public pensioners and their annual payments. Read More