New York has dished out more on film-tax credits since 2003, about $5 billion overall, than it would have on the Amazon deal, E.J. McMahon, founder of the Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative think tank in Albany. Read More
Category: Media Coverage
Schools, excluding the Big 5 districts of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Yonkers and New York City, are proposing to increase taxes by $539 million despite an enrollment drop of 7,827 students, or a 0.5% decline, the Empire Center for State Policy, a fiscally conservative think tank said. Read More
The source, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, said federal prosecutors requested "payroll and other records" for the workers about two and a half weeks ago, shortly after the release of an Empire Center for Public Policy report detailing the authority's payroll in 2018. Read More
The revelation that a 33-year Long Island Rail Road track worker with a $54,989 base salary raked in $311,162 last year, outrageous as it was, came as no surprise. Every year veteran Metropolitan Transportation Authority employees cash in massively on overtime. Every year the abuse is flagged by salary-data hounds at the Empire Center for New York State Policy. Every year the media publishes the story. And every year the MTA pledges to act but does nothing. At the LIRR, overtime costs rose more than 50% in the past four years. Read More
The 2011 tax cap law, that would have expired in 2020, was made permanent this year. It limits the annual growth in property tax levies to 2% or the rate of inflation, whichever is less, and with certain exclusions for each district. The fiscally conservative Empire Center says the law has saved New Yorkers billions of dollars in municipal and school tax payments. Read More
MTA chairman Pat Foye promised the “rapid rollout” of a 21st century system after the Empire Center for Public Policy revealed the staggering overtime hours logged by Caputo and others. Read More
The “condemning” resolution accuses MTA Chairman Patrick Foye and board member Larry Schwartz, a confidante of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, of pulling a “raw and calculated stunt” when they called a board meeting last Friday to address rising overtime. The contentious session followed an Empire Center for Public Policy report flagging a 16% spike in MTA overtime costs last year. Read More
Notably, the OT surge was highest at the Long Island Rail Road, up 30 percent last year and more than double the 2013 level, the Empire Center reports. And The Post has highlighted some hard-to-swallow extreme LIRR cases, with one guy working the equivalent of 16 hours a day for the whole year. Read More