Tim Hoefer

President & CEO

Tim Hoefer is president and CEO of the Empire Center for Public Policy. He joined the Center in March 2008, and previously served as the Center’s director of operations and communications manager.

Hoefer’s work focuses on transparency, government reform and accountability. He has written several papers on those subjects, testified before local and statewide panels and authored various op-eds. His numerous interviews have been featured in print, radio and broadcast media throughout the state. Since its launch in July 2008, Hoefer has been the principal on the Center’s government transparency project, SeeThroughNY.net.

Before joining the Center, Hoefer worked in communications and public affairs with the New York State Senate and Assembly. He also has worked as a consultant for, and on, political campaigns, at the local, state and federal level.

Born and raised in Saratoga, he is a native New Yorker. Hoefer has a bachelor’s degree in government & politics from George Mason University and earned his master’s degree in public policy from New England College.

Latest Work

The Fear Behind City Union’s Strike Threat

Polling this month showed that two-thirds of the nation’s teachers would prefer to stay out of the classroom this fall, and teachers unions across America are poised to keep schools from reopening. The unions say the safety of their members is their top concern, yet, truth is, their bottom lines are just as critical. That’s because the pandemic represents their biggest financial threat since teachers won the right to stop paying them. Read More

Taxpayers must have access

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#NYCoronavirus: While daily life has been disrupted, essential functions must go on amid the coronavirus crisis—including the budgeting process for the state’s nearly 700 school districts. Read More

Cuomo’s doomed pro-union tricks

This week’s US Supreme Court ruling in Janus v. AFSCME was not unexpected — and neither was the agitated, high-volume reaction from Gov. Cuomo and the public-sector union bosses who are his strongest political allies. Read More

A Senate SEQR streamliner

For the first time in decades, at least one house of the Legislature may be ready to advance reform of New York's State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQR), long identified as a major obstacle to growth across the state. Read More

Local govs score with better websites

In 2014, the Empire Center created guidelines for what information local governments and school districts should make available on their websites—and found that most of the state's 500 largest municipalities and districts were not meeting that standard. Read More

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CONTACT INFORMATION

Empire Center for Public Policy
30 South Pearl St.
Suite 1210
Albany, NY 12207

Phone: 518-434-3100
Fax: 518-434-3130
E-Mail: info@empirecenter.org

About

The Empire Center is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank located in Albany, New York. Our mission is to make New York a better place to live and work by promoting public policy reforms grounded in free-market principles, personal responsibility, and the ideals of effective and accountable government.