Local government is a labor-intensive business, and employee compensation is the single biggest element of most municipal budgets. The 2014-15 edition of What They Make, the Empire Center’s annual report on public payrolls, allows New York taxpayers to compare this key element of local government costs around the state. Read More
State lawmakers have been dipping into a new fund of legislative earmarks, spending millions of dollars on everything from renovating parks and playgrounds to hotels over the last three years. Read More
So-called Pork Barrel spending is back in Albany politics, making a quiet return this year in the form of what are now called legislative earmarks. Millions of dollars of these earmarks are being doled out for a variety of projects by both legislative chambers. And as Capital Tonight's Nick Reisman shares, it should come as no surprise that good government advocates aren't thrilled with the earmark system, and they're calling for more transparency while legislative leaders defend the program. Read More
New York City firefighters and fire officers who retired during the 2015 fiscal year were eligible for average pensions of $113,341 pension, a nine percent increase over the previous year, according to data posted today on SeeThroughNY, the Empire Center's transparency website. Read More
There is plenty of room for improvement across Upstate New York when it comes to the online services local governments provide. When the Empire Center for Public Policy issued its SeeThroughNY Local Government Website Report Card a year ago, Utica, Syracuse, Albany and Buffalo all received Fs, while Rochester fared only slightly better with a D. Read More
New York's six-figure public sector pension club keeps growing, with 2,931 retirees getting benefits above $100,000, according to the latest figures. That's beyond the 2,700 six-figure pensioners counted a year before. Of those, 1,777 were poli Read More
The Empire Center says the latest public data show more than 2,900 state and local government retirees in New York are collecting pensions topping $100,000. Read More
The golden years are looking a lot greener for a growing number of retired public workers. Data released Thursday showed that 2,931 retired state and local government workers earned six-figure pensions during the 2015 fiscal year, up from 2,700 the previous year. Read More