The Empire Center for Public Policy is a fiscally conservative think tank and government watchdog group based in Albany, New York.

[5] The Center's stated mission is 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.

[13][14][15] In 2017 Empire issued a report on possible misdirection of the state's Indigent Care Pool, with private hospitals serving primarily non-indigent patients receiving substantial grants from the pool over hospitals serving primarily indigent patients.

[27] Through Empire's transparency efforts, overtime abuse in the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) was uncovered.

[31] Some Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) employees were using handwritten time records instead of electronic systems, which are easier to track and prevent abuse.

[30][34] The controversy resulted in a federal probe[35] and MTA Inspector General Barry Kluger stepping down from his post.