Ken Girardin

Special Advisor

Ken Girardin is a special advisor to the Empire Center, following several years of work guiding the organization’s research agenda and communications strategy. He joined the Manhattan Institute as a fellow in March 2025.

Ken’s work for the Empire Center included The Micron Test, which compared how New York treats large new business operations with those already here, and Green Guardrails, a critical analysis of New York’s 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.

He previously worked with E.J. McMahon to produce the first independent analysis of New York’s property tax cap, which demonstrated the cap’s effectiveness and boosted efforts to extend the cap and ultimately make it permanent. He also authored The Janus Stakes, a quantitative analysis of the influence New York’s public-sector unions have over public policy in the Empire State.

Ken has a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in materials engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York. He was previously an aide in the New York State Legislature.

Latest Work

Tax cap keeps getting grief

Seven years after its enactment, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s cap on property tax levies continues to be a target of unfounded criticism by some politicians and candidates who either don’t understand the cap or deliberately misrepresent how it works. Read More

Janus v. AFSCME: What now?

Four months after the Janus decision, tens of thousands of New Yorkers are taking home bigger paychecks thanks to the end of forced union fees, having saved about $30 million in the last three months. The ruling brought New York unions in li Read More

DiNapoli blocks the union exit

State officials are still working overtime to shield government unions from the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Janus v. AFSCME. This week, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office has issued new guidelines effectively giving the unions the first say on efforts by employees to opt out of union dues payments. Read More

NY’s (mis)leading union tactic

Desperate to minimize a potential loss of dues under a recent Supreme Court ruling, one of New York State’s largest public employee unions is telling public employers to disregard the union’s own previously stated conditions for letting workers stop paying dues. The tactic employed by the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) in response to the Janus v. AFSCME decision will put local governments in a bind—which is likely to end up generating added legal bills for taxpayers. Read More

Cuomo’s bad Janus advice

Governor Andrew Cuomo hit a new extreme in his bid to prop up government unions, telling public employers to ignore parts of both state law and the Supreme Court ruling in Janus v. AFSCME. Read More

Wind costs will blow north

Upstate New York ratepayers will pick up more than half the multi-billion-dollar tab for a massive offshore wind turbine project that will provide very costly power for Long Island and New York City. Read More