Category: Media Coverage

Teachers in the mid-Hudson pull down some of the highest salaries in the state, based on data cited by a conservative think tank. Read More

Instead of a gold watch, more and more teachers are getting gold-plated pensions when they retire. The number of retirees earning six-figure pensions from the city and state teacher retirement systems nearly tripled during the past five years, according to a report from the Empire Center for Public Policy released Thursday. Read More

New York's top economic development agency isn't releasing enough information to determine whether billions of dollars are being misspent. Read More

Say this for Sheldon Silver, who steps down today after more than two decades as state Assembly speaker: He’s doing New York taxpayers an unexpected favor. Not only will Silver be saving taxpayers nearly $10,000 a year by not giving up his Assembly seat, he’s driving home a much-needed lesson about the urgent need for public-pension reform. Read More

Florida is luring more than just New York’s residents. It’s also absorbing a growing pile of cash from the state’s largest pension. Read More

More than $700 million in tax breaks and other state resources awarded to developers last month in exchange for promises to create jobs included more than $3 million for a LegoLand theme park in the lower Hudson Valley, $1.5 million for a National Comedy Center in Lucille Ball’s hometown of Jamestown and $4.7 million to build a commercial building next to the Wyandanch rail station. Read More

As expected, the current scandal in Albany around state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has fanned the flames for more reform in the Legislature. “Term limits would strike at a problem more pervasive than corruption (at the Capitol): legislative careerism,” says Tim Hoefer, executive director of the Empire Center for Public Policy. Read More

He was shocked — shocked — that Sheldon Silver did anything wrong. The founder of a law firm that paid Silver millions over a dozen years for doing virtually no work gave the disgraced Assembly speaker his walking ­papers Wednesday. Read More