Nearly two-thirds (264) of the 420 firefighters and fire officers who retired from the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) during 2016 are eligible to collect pensions of at least $100,000, according to data posted today on SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s transparency website. Read More
OT made up 10 to 23 percent of the payroll of many city agencies, according to an analysis by the Empire Center for Public Policy, a government watchdog. Read More
Wednesday, Mayor de Blasio presented a fiscal 2018 Executive Budget that called for pension contributions totaling $9.6 billion — another all-time high. Yet city pension plans remain significantly underfunded even by lenient government accounting standards, posing a big risk to New York’s fiscal future. Read More
The city of New York has been ordered to pay the legal costs and fees to the Empire Center for Public Policy in connection with the Center’s successful effort to obtain city payroll data under the state Freedom of Information Law (FOIL). Read More
For most of the past year and a half, Gov. Cuomo has sought to make the 421-a affordable housing program both less effective and more wasteful, by mandating the use of higher-priced unionized construction workers on 421-a projects. Read More
Hizzoner cooked up something nice for his entire staff. Mayor de Blasio doled out raises to 358 of 360 staffers in fiscal year 2016. That came to a total of $2 million, which included a generous $13,000 raise to the executive chef at Gracie Mansion, who now earns $115,000. Data compiled by the Empire Center also show 56 City Hall staffers — including 35 who got new job titles — received raises of more than 20%. Read More
Hundreds of New York City government employees more than doubled their pay with overtime during the city’s 2016 fiscal year, according to the latest payroll data added to SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s transparency website. Read More
New York City firefighters and fire officers who retired during the 2016 fiscal year were eligible for average pensions of $119,863, a 6 percent increase over the previous year, according to data gleaned from 15,557 Fire Department pension records updated today on SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center’s transparency website. Read More