Empire Center for New York State Policy
From Sunshine Review
| Empire Center for New York State Policy | |
| 501(c)(3) | |
 | |
| Leadership: | Edmund J. McMahon |
| Political party | Nonpartisan |
| Website | Empire Center for New York State Policy |
| Transparency Focus | |
| SeeThroughNY | |
Contents |
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| Ray of Sunshine |
| Site of the Day Nominations Chosen sites |
| Portal |
Many of the projects undertaken by the Empire Center emphasize the use of public records as a means of tracking government spending.
[edit] Empire Center Projects
[edit] Public employee contracts
The Empire Center released a report in 2008 examining contract negotiations between the state and public employee unions showing that the tendency to keep details of such negotiations under wraps as long as possible is costing taxpayers millions of dollars. [2] The report is available here.
[edit] Municipal salaries
The SeeThroughNY project is a web portal "designed to become the hub of a statewide network through which taxpayers can share, analyze and compare data from counties, cities, towns, villages, school districts and public authorities throughout New York". [3]
Through studying the information on the database, the Empire Center determined that over 4% of city employees made annual salaries of more than $100,000. That's 18,361 employees out of a workforce of 427,759. The top paid employee is Department of Education Chancellor Joel I. Klein, who takes home $250,000 a year. [4]
At the transparency portal's one year anniversary, the Empire Center celebrated with an updated SeeThroughNY. The site already provided information on state contracts and payrolls, but now it includes data on pork-barrel spending. The site provides a place for taxpayers to search for all representatives and look up pork-barrel projects in their hometowns.
[edit] Fiscal Watch
NY Fiscal Watch provides information on tax-and-spend trends in New York. It contains memos, reports, articles, and testimony.
[edit] Public Payroll Watch
NY Public Payroll Watch tracks labor issues which affect the cost of state and city government in New York. It provides a daily updates and news clips along with original research reports.
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ↑ Empire Center: About Us
- ↑ Report: Secrecy costs N.Y. taxpayers millions, Star Gazette, November 7, 2008
- ↑ SeeThroughNY, A Window on Your Money
- ↑ See what city workers make, Staten Island Advance, January 7, 2009
