Tim Hoefer

It seems like everyone who counts in Albany could get a pay bump before the year's out. Read More

Reversing decades of precedent, all but one of the state's public pension funds are now refusing to release the names of hundreds of thousands of retired employees who collect billions of dollars a year in taxpayer-guaranteed pensions. Read More

The New York Times has agreed to print a correction of this article about the minimum wage issue, which includes inaccurate information implicitly attributed to Empire Center senior fellow Russell Sykes. Read More

Forty-nine school districts* were seeking to override the state's new property tax cap in yesterday's school budget votes. Of those, our review of regional media coverage suggests 30 districts* passed an override, while 19 districts voted their budgets down. Seven of the proposed overrides failed to collect even 50 percent of the vote. Read More

The Charlotte Valley School District in Delaware County had a tough employment situation on their hands until just last week. Former building principal Edgar Whaley had been a focus of controversy — going back at least a year. But that’s all settled now, thanks to a secret, lucrative contract settlement passed by the school’s board of education late last week. Read More

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Let's make a deal - you give me $650 today, and five years from now I'll give you $10,000 back.  That incredible return on investment is what some forward-thinking federal agencies are taxpayers, according to the National Archives and Records Admin Read More

Gov. Cuomo's tax-hike package -- according to him -- is an "extraordinary benefit to the state ... that the state desperately, desperately needs to help turn around this economy." E.J.'s been covering all the reasons why and turn around "this eco Read More