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Empire Center For Public Policy

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Empire Center for Public Policy
Empire-logo-transparent-sm.png
Basic facts
Location:Albany, New York
Type:501(c)(3)
Affiliation:Nonpartisan
Top official:Zilvinas "Z" Silenas, president and CEO
Founder(s):E.J. McMahon
Year founded:2005
Employees:16
Website:Official website


The Empire Center for Public Policy is a nonpartisan think tank that publishes research and commentary on state and local public policy issues in New York, including energy, K-12 education, taxes, and government accountability.[1][2] The Empire Center began as a project of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research but became an independent organization in 2013.[1] As of November 2025, the Empire Center was a state affiliate of the State Policy Network.[3]

Background

The Manhattan Institute founded the Empire Center for New York State Policy in 2005.[1] In 2013, it became an independent think tank and was renamed the Empire Center for Public Policy.Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name cannot be a simple integer. Use a descriptive title

The Empire Center said its mission was to "to make New York a better place to live and work by promoting public policy reforms grounded in free-market principles, personal responsibility, and the ideals of effective and accountable government."[4]

Leadership

As of November 2025, the following individuals held leadership positions at the Empire Center:[5]

  • Zilvinas "Z" Silenas, president & CEO
  • Mark Walsh, director of operations
  • Adbullah Ar Rafee, data manager

Work and activities

The Empire Center listed the following initiatives in its 2024 annual report:[1]

“
  • Calling out CLCPA: Our “Green Guardrails” report exposes the high costs, flawed methodologies, and political motivations embedded in New York’s climate laws.
  • Raising Alarm on Public Pensions: We exposed and brought public attention to proposed increases to “Tier 6” pensions, which will cost New York $4 billion.
  • Exposing State Grants to Donors: Not only did we uncover millions of taxpayer dollars going to supporters of political campaigns, we created a database for investigators and reporters.
  • Explaining Prop 1: We tirelessly explained what Ballot Proposal One — a proposition to amend the equal protection clause of the state Constitution — is and how it will throw New York civil rights into turmoil.
  • Stopping Prescription Fees: After our relentless critique, the proposal to impose a $10.18 fee for filling most drug prescriptions was withdrawn.
  • Unmasking Unions on School Boards: We revealed how teachers’ unions control school boards, often acting against the interests of students, parents, and taxpayers. We’ve also developed a comprehensive solution to fix these issues.[6]
 ”

Legislative and policy work

As of November 2025, the Empire Center included data dashboards on education, including K-12 enrollment and district finances, migration to and from New York, and a polling index of New York demographics.[7]

Municipal salaries

The Empire Center defined SeeThroughNY as 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."[8] As of November 2025, the site included data on payrolls, pensions, contracts, expenditures, benchmarking, the state budget, waivers, and teacher pay.[8]

Finances

The following is a breakdown of Empire Center's revenues and expenses from 2017 to 2024. The information comes from ProPublica.

Empire Center For Public Policy financial data 2017-2024
Year Revenue Expenses
2024 $1.6 million $1.4 million
2023 $1.3 million $1.9 million
2022 $2.2 million $1.9 million
2021 $1.6 million $1.7 million
2020 $1.4 million $1.4 million
2019 $1.6 million $1.8 million
2018 $1.5 million $1.3 million
2017 $1.1 million $1.1 million


External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Empire Center for New York State Policy, "Annual Report 2024," accessed November 21, 2025
  2. ↑ Empire Center for Public Policy, "Who We Are," accessed November 21, 2025
  3. ↑ State Policy Network, "The Network—NY," accessed November 21, 2025
  4. ↑ Empire Center for New York State Policy, "homepage," accessed November 21, 2025
  5. ↑ Empire Center for Public Policy, "Our Team," accessed November 21, 2025
  6. ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
  7. ↑ Empire Center, "Data dashboards," accessed November 24, 2025,
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 SeeThroughNY, "Frequently Asked Questions," accessed November 24, 2025


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