Reports and Fact Sheets

Reinvent Albany regularly writes and publishes on issues and legislation relevant to our core mission. Below is a complete list of our reports, policy briefs, and memos.

March 2024 Listening to FOIL 2024: Lessons from Six NYS Agencies Our new report looks at the open records requests made per the Freedom of Information Law to six agencies of NYS government. Read more November 2023 “Open Criminal Courts” Report Finds At Most 6% of NY Criminal Court Decisions Published The report calls for criminal court decisions to be published to improve transparency and public accountability. Read more July 2023 “Open ESD” Report Recommends Major Reforms for Secretive State Authority Report includes 35 specific actions to improve Empire State Development’s transparency, governance, oversight, and ethics. Read more June 2023 NJ Businesses Earned $3.3B from MTA Contracts from 2014-2022 MTA is big business for NJ, with $3.3B paid to NJ companies over last 9 years. Read more April 2023 New Report Shows Buying Influence Works The science is clear: Gifts, including campaign contributions, influence the decision-making of elected officials. Read more March 2023 Lump Sum Warning Report Finds $14.8B Waste/Corruption-Prone Pots of Money in Budget Reinvent Albany and Citizens Budget Commission released a joint report finding $14.8B in proposed lump sum pots in Gov Hochul’s Executive Budget Read more March 2023 Major Studies Show Film and TV Tax Credit Programs Create Little Payoff NYS leaders are proposing a massive expansion of NY’s film/TV tax credit that would cost $7B over the next decade. There's substantial evidence that these credits don't create the promised effects on jobs, incomes, or economic growth. Read more February 2023 Debunked: 25 Major Studies Showing Corporate Handouts Do Not Work There is overwhelming evidence that government handouts to corporations and industries are a waste of taxpayer funds. Read more February 2023 NY Opportunity Zones May Be Subsidizing Guns, Oil, Crypto NY may be subsidizing investments in gun mega-sellers, oil companies, and crypto mining under the Opportunity Zone (OZ) tax break, Reinvent Albany said in new report: “Guns, Oil, and Crypto.” Read more January 2023 Gov Hochul Doubling Down on Totally Discredited Corporate Welfare An analysis of the four biggest boondoggles that Governor Hochul mentioned in the State of the State. Read more January 2023 State Still Keeping Nine Big Secrets About Vornado/Penn Station Deal ESD and the Hochul administration continue to hide basic information about the Penn Station redevelopment project. We call on them to be fully transparent with the public and release this critical information. Read more January 2023 TIFs: No Such Thing as Free Money Tax Increment Financing (TIF) schemes divert future tax revenue from special districts to government-backed projects intended to reduce blight or create jobs via redevelopment. We oppose TIFs because they are off-budget and put tax dollars at risk. Read more