Reports and Fact Sheets
Issue: Accountable Public Authorities “Open MTA”

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.

June 2024
The MTA Is Big Business in the Tri-State Region 100,000 New York Jobs at Risk from Cancellation of Congestion Pricing Read more May 2024
Agency Transparency Plans All Fizzle, No Sizzle Our report reviewed 66 transparency plans by NYS agencies to Gov. Hochul in Q1 2024, finding them incomplete and underwhelming. Read more 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 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 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 December 2022
Skipping Out: NYS Not Making $375 Million/Year in Payments Promised to MTA By ending budget scams, Gov. Hochul can immediately restore $375 million in MTA funds from the 18-b program and PMT replacement funds. Read more December 2022
PACB Vote Approving Penn Redevelopment Plan Completely Abnormal Analysis of Newly-FOILed Records Confirms July 2022 Penn Resolution One of Only Two of 1,017 “Applications” Voted on by the PACB NOT about Project Financing Read more