The salaries of hundreds of thousands of state employees can now be searched through an online database set up by a private institution. The Web site, SeeThroughNY.net, is the creation of the Manhattan Institute’s Empire Center for Public Policy, and allows users to search state payroll records, contracts, and expenditures, as well as legislators’ member items, commonly referred to as “pork.”
According to a senior policy analyst for the Empire Center, Lise Bang-Jensen, the Web site is meant to make government more accountable by allowing state residents to easily see how their tax money is being spent.
“Once the taxpayers are provided with more information, they will be more able to engage in the debate over how their money should be spent,” Ms. Bang-Jensen said yesterday. “Most people know very little about how their school budget is spent, say, or any number of things in the state budget.”
Using the database, users can see the salary of everyone from Governor Paterson, who makes $179,000, to his staffers, such as the secretary to the governor, Charles O’Byrne, who makes $178,500. Students at City University of New York and the State University of New York can look up the salaries of their professors.
All the information in the database is already publicly accessible through state and local government, but can sometimes require lengthy Freedom of Information Law requests to obtain, making the Web site a more convenient way to search. The Empire Center is planning to expand the database to include city and county employees as well.
“The biggest problem for the state is the enormous, recurring structural budget gap starting next year and into the future,” said E.J. McMahon of the conservative-leaning Empire Center. “Cuomo clearly hopes that starting in 2021, (Democratic presidential candidate Joseph) Biden and a Democratic Congress will provide states and local government a couple of year’s worth of added stimulus. Read More
Ed McKinley
ALBANY — When the New York Constitution was reorganized nearly 100 years ago to give the governor more power over the budget process, noted there was a risk of making “the governor a czar."
M Read More
Michael Gormley
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Johan Sheridan
ALBANY, N.Y. () — The Empire Center filed a against the state Department of Health on Friday.
“This case isn’t about assigning blame or embarrassing political leaders,” said Bill Hammond, the Empire Center’s Read More
The Empire Center first reported Tuesday that grants — 226 of them, totaling $46 million, to recipients selected by the governor and individual state lawmakers — seemed to still be going ahead. Read More
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“The importance of discussing this and getting the true facts out is to understand what did and didn’t happen so we can learn from it in case this happens again,” Hammond said. Read More
No doubt, the Health Department and the governor would like this report to be the final word on the subject.
But if it’s all the same with them, we’d still like a truly independent review. Read More