Taxpayer-funded pension contributions in New York City will need to increase by a total of $732 million between fiscal years 2018 and 2020 due to the pension funds' paltry investment earnings in the recently concluded 2016 fiscal year, City Comptroller Scott Stringer has just disclosed. Read More
The Empire Center found city school-custodian engineers were the highest-paid group of city employees in 2014, earning an average of $109,467. And their union contract made it impossible to fire them unless they were jailed. Some custodians did stellar work — but many schools looked like dumps. Read More
"Spending cap? What spending cap?" In effect, that's the state Assembly's opening public bid in state budget negotiations with Gov. Andrew Cuomo for the fiscal year that starts April 1. Read More
New York has made a compact with police officers: Their incomes will be preserved for life in the event that they are disabled in the line of duty. Read More
Pension payments to 78,523 New York City public school and City University of New York retirees were added today to SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center's transparency website. Read More
The new ruling stems from the Albany-based Empire Center’s Freedom of Information Law request in 2014 seeking the names of people receiving pensions through the New York City Employees’ Retirement System. Read More
The New York City Employee Retirement System (NYCERS) must provide the Empire Center with names and amounts of pensions paid to retired New York City uniformed employees, such as corrections officers, a Kings County Supreme Court judge ruled today. Read More
“You do have to take this capital plan with a grain of salt,” said EJ McMahon, with the fiscally conservative Empire Center. McMahon predicted the projects, “. . . will happen in a different way and on a different schedule than the governor may have implied.” Read More