In his continuing effort to fill a slow-news holiday period with advance proposals from his upcoming 2020 State of the State message, Governor Cuomo today dusted off one of Albany's creakiest bipartisan infrastructure fantasies: high-speed passenger rail service. Read More
Our MTA payroll summary was only the second most-viewed SeeThroughNY news release of 2019. To find out which of transparency postings got the most attention this year, scroll through the list of the 2019 Top 10 SeeThroughNY press releases. Read More
Instead of properly managing Medicaid, the state’s biggest and most important program, Cuomo subverted his own reforms, whitewashed official reports, withheld information from the Legislature and the public, flouted his constitutional duties and, worst of all, secretly delayed $1.7 billion in payments from one fiscal year to the next. Read More
A proposed rule under consideration by the U.S. Department of Labor would have the unexpected benefit of letting more New York public employees see how their union dues are spent—and negating a major union’s recent move to escape federal oversight. Read More
Governor Cuomo says that controlling the cost of prescription drugs will be part of his agenda in 2020. Four bills currently awaiting his signature or veto give him a chance to get started on that promise in 2019. Read More
A year after completing its replacement for the Tappan Zee Bridge, and seven years after starting construction on the project, the state Thruway Authority has finally gotten around to proposing a schedule for raising the eastbound-only bridge toll. Read More
Medicaid and other healthcare issues dominated the most-read posts on the Empire Center's NYTorch blog in 2019—a year that's ended under the shadow of a major state Medicaid budget overrun first disclosed on this site. Read More
Governor Andrew Cuomo has vetoed two measures that were legislative priorities for public-sector unions. Read More
New York State is facing its biggest budget deficit since Gov. Cuomo took office at the end of the Great Recession — but you’d never know it from watching or listening to the Board of Regents, the state’s education policy-making body. Read More
Rochester schools are laying off 152 teachers, but there’s little doubt which educators are on the chopping block. Read More
Budget deficit? What budget deficit? With today’s pending recommendation from the Board of Regents, New York's education establishment is united in proposing that state aid to America's best-funded preK-12 public school system be increased next year by at least $2 billion. The figure is nearly double the amount projected in Governor Cuomo's financial plan—which showed the state is running deeply in the red and facing its largest budget shortfall since the Great Recession. Read More
The Cuomo administration recently revealed that New York’s Medicaid program is running over budget by an astonishing 16 percent, or $4 billion, even though enrollment is flat and medical inflation is at historic lows. This seemingly out-of-nowhere spending spike has triggered the Empire State’s worst fiscal crisis since the Great Recession. It raises an awkward question for fans of single-payer health care in Albany: If state government can’t properly manage the fraction of the health-care system it already controls, why should it be trusted to take over the whole thing? Read More