The individual cases of huge overtime payments for Mr. Caputo and others — first revealed to the public last month in an annual report from the Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscal research group — have highlighted failures by the authority to modernize the timekeeping systems for its 70,000 employees. Read More
The Empire Center, a nonprofit group that breaks down payroll payments of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, also found that overtime spending for the LIRR increased $50 million, almost 30 percent, from 2017 to 2018. Read More
But E.J. McMahon, research director for the fiscally conservative Empire Center for Public Policy, says the revenue and economic outlook for the fiscal year is “pretty optimistic” for a governor “who hasn’t stopped predicting we’re doomed as a result of the SALT cap.” Read More
Kudos to the Empire Center for uncovering such outrages: It’s had to go to court time and again to force disclosure of pay and pension info for public employees across the state. Read More
E.J. McMahon, who served as a deputy tax commissioner in the administration of former Gov. George Pataki and now is the research director for the Empire Center for Public Policy, an Albany think tank, said STAR has always been about fiscal gimmickry and is going further in that direction. “It would have been a better idea to simply freeze the STAR benefit rather than sneakily convert it into a credit,” he said. Read More
Last month, a watchdog group called Empire Center for Public Policy released a report after examining MTA payroll data. The report found that the MTA spent more than $1 billion in overtime in 2018, up $100 million from the prior year. Read More
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
A recent analysis by the Empire Center revealed that MTA cops took in an average of about $35,000 in overtime and other extra pay in 2018. Foye described the plan to monitor worker overtime with MTA as a “welcome step" earlier this week. Read More