Tag: SeeThroughNY

New Yorkers are used to seeing the leaders of various municipal employees unions get hot and bothered about relatively trivial issues. It's who they are; it's what they do. Being anything but shrinking violets, these outspoken union bosses like the attention their outrage generates. And being seen as standing up in defense of their supposedly put-upon members always helps when they run for re-election. But even understanding that phenomenon, we're at a loss to understand the righteous indignation of several fire unions over a ruling that the New York City Fire Pension Fund must make public the name and pension amounts received by retirees. Read More

After five years of lawsuits and appeals, a Brooklyn judge has definitively upheld the right to know who’s drawing public pensions and how much they’re being paid. Read More

The names of former New York City firefighters and the public pensions they are receiving must be released under the state Freedom of Information Law to a group that is building a database of public employee pensioners, a judge ruled. Read More

Municipalities are not required by law to maintain websites. They come with a cost, they need to be maintained and they require a certain amount of in-house computer savvy to keep current. Nevertheless, good websites should be part of every municipal package because their value to taxpayers is well worth the effort. Several area municipalities took that seriously after receiving a failing grade last November when the Empire Center for Public Policy released a SeeThroughNY Website Report Card on municipal websites. The center examined 500 websites for contact information, spending date, labor contracts and public meeting records, and the ease of locating those items, and graded them accordingly. Read More

In a ruling that favored the Empire Center's position, a state Supreme Court justice in Brooklyn today ordered the New York City Fire Pension Fund to release the names as well as pension amounts of its retirees. Read More

Should New York State do more to help Western New York deal with the growing tax burden? Read More

The pork-barrel spending better known as legislative member items has reappeared in a budget bill that New York State legislators are expected to vote on this week. Read More

High taxes are a fact in Western New York. And a recent Empire Center for Public Policy report found our region is No. 1 in the state when it comes to tax burden. Read More