Good-bye Jay Gallagher, League friend and blogger

DEAR FRIEND
Barbara Bartoletti

Not often in one's professional life, especially in politics, do you work with someone who epitomizes integrity and professionalism. Over the past 26 years I have had the privilege of working with Jay Gallagher, former Gannett Albany Bureau Chief and recent League blogger who died peacefully Monday night after an 11 month battle with pancreatic cancer.

Jay was not just a reporter to me but a friend and a mentor. Early on in my tenure as the League's Legislator Director, Jay taught me the in's and out's of dealing with the press, such things as "off the record" and "background." We had a symbiotic work relationship as his paper was read in places where the League had many, many members and I needed to show League visibility in the places where we had many, many members. It worked well for us both and along the way we became good friends. He used to call me a "good quote" and I knew he would always get it right. Jay and I also shared a love for raw Albany politics, and sports (I was the dreaded Yankee fan and he was the ardent Red Sox fan). We had children the same age and so shared family stories as our children grew up and went out into life. He was one of the people I could turn to in the legislature during those awful years when my son was in Iraq.

After Jay was diagnosed and his treatment permitted, he came to me and asked if perhaps the League could use a blogger. I said yes immediately and after conversations with the board, Jay put his rare talent to work for the League. It was so important for him to be involved again in state politics and it was so wonderful for the League to have this "Albany institution" bogging for us. It was also very special for me to be able to work with this good man in the last months of his life.

Our thoughts and love are with his wife and daughters. And from me, thank you, dear friend, travel well down this new road.

The best laid schemes of mice and men…

Tomorrow night was supposed to be the night when we had quite a gala - a Gannett Albany celebration! We were going to mark my retirement, Joe Specter's elevation to Bureau Chief, Cara Matthews' outstanding contributions over the last six years, and the hiring of Nick Reisman.

Instead, I'm going to be spending the night in the St. Peter's Hospital ICU with nurses watching over me closely to make sure most of my current systems continue to perform adequately.

The cause of this pivot in plans: the rough night I had last night throwing up blood, despite the fact that numerous tests had discovered no problem in recent exams. That's cancer for you.

Doctors tend to take such things seriously, since rapid blood loss is a major cause of death. So this morning we called 911, had the neighborhood deluged with emergency trucks, and got transported to St. Peter's hospital.

Best news is that they found some minor tears in the region of the stomach and esophagus that could have been caused by the deep retching I did. And the very clever gastroenterologists do have a way to stop the bleeding and heal the tears. Of course, it could also be that the tumor is causing the bleeding, which presents a whole new set of problems.

Meanwhile, we are hoping for the simpler explanation and cure.

You might want to vote tomorrow

Most people don't know who is running in school-board elections tomorrow. In fact, probably many of us don't even know anyone who is VOTING in the elections, although arguably they are the most important local balloting held all year.

According to an analysis done by the state School Boards Association, only about 10 percent of eligible voters (district residents who are 18 and U.S. citizens) will cast ballots tomorrow, when voters will decide whether to approve school spending plans as well as elect new members to school boards.

And yet this is the time when voters get to decide directly how big their school property-tax bills will be as well as who will set educational policy.

Part of the reason is undoubtedly that since the posts don't pay anything in most instances, they don't attract a lot of candidates to what seems like a totally thankless job.

Maybe it will be different this year when there is an unusually high level of voter anger at school property taxes. The trouble with that, of course, is that the property taxes for all intents and purposes are set when the school board signs a contract with its unions, not at the budget vote. The process of ratifying new contracts by long tradition is kept secret in most districts until the teacher union OKs the deal.

But tomorrow is the best shots voters have - and if they ever elected board members in large numbers who insist on letting taxpayers know what they're getting into before a contract is signed, the first tremors of a long-anticipated taxpayer revolt might be heard.

New weapon for gov in budget fight

Lawmakers left town today until Monday, guaranteeing that the
budget will be more than six weeks late and furthering speculation
that it may well be after November’s elections before a spending plan
is in place.

The rationale here is when faced with the decision of
delivering a budget calling for painful spending cuts and/or tax hikes
or just not doing anything, lawmakers may well opt for the latter.

They might think they can get away with this, League
legislative director Barbara Bartoletti speculates, because so little
pressure is being put on them by Gov. David Paterson to abide by a new
state law that is supposed to prevent long delays.

“There have been no open leaders’ meetings held in the last
several months,’’ she pointed out, and conference committees haven’t
progressed beyond “planning’’ for them. And she said rank-and-file
members have been reduced to asking lobbyists about the status of
budget talks.

All of these developments fly in the face of a 2007 reform law
that was supposed to open up the process, but has been mostly ignored
this year.

On the other hand, Paterson has used a new weapon to try to get
action: inserting policies that lawmakers don’t like in the weekly
emergency-spending bills needed to keep the state operating while no
budget is in place.

They included first a freeze on pay raises due state workers April 1
and then this week a plan to furlough 100,000 state workers for one
day a week, effectively cutting their pay by 20 percent. (State
workers went to court today to try to have that nullified). If
lawmakers had failed to act, most state agencies, like motor vehicles,
transportation and tax and finance, would have been shut down. What’s
next? Might he try to ram through a tax on soda and other sugary
drinks the same way?

Paterson seems to be trying to enlist some powerful enemies of
his budget initiatives into the fight to get lawmakers to vote for a
spending plan, piece by piece. Until and unless courts intervene,
Paterson may have come up with a powerful new weapon in his budget
brawl with lawmakers.

Lawmakers can't wiggle out of furlough vote

How can you vote for a bill on the one hand but express displeasure with it on the other?

The state Senate took a shot at it today.

Without dissent, it approved a resolution asking Gov. David Paterson to withdraw a bill that would pay for the operations of state government for the next week and replace it with another one that would do almost the same thing as the bill that is now before them.

The key difference: the existing bill calls for a one-day-a-week unpaid furlough for 100,000 state workers until a new state budget (which was supposed to be adopted by April 1) is finally passed. The new bill, the senators hope, would delete the furlough provision.

The senators made this maneuver because they are between a rock - approving the furlough - and a hard place - shutting down state government.

“No one expects us to close down state government,’’ said Sen. Neil Breslin, D-Delmar, who represents Albany County, which has the thickest concentration of public workers in New York. He sponsored the amendment. “It would cause chaos.’’

That means that both the Assembly and Senate will adopt some time this evening the budget bill with the furloughs included, which Paterson says will save $30 million a week and help the state close its $9.2 billion budget hole.

But Breslin and the other senators will be able to tell the state workers that they at least tried a new way for another solution that didn’t include a furlough.

Paterson had no immediate comment, but has said he has no intention of withdrawing his furlough plan.

League members want answers on reform proposals

More than 200 League members from as far away as Suffolk County and Buffalo were part of a crowd of greater than 300 people who gathered today in Albany to hear what legislative leaders and statewide elected officials plan to do to clean up state government.

Much of the discussion focused on redistricting, which will take place in time for 2012 elections. The process has been oft-criticized by the League and other reform groups because they see it as a tool to increase majority-party chances of winning more seats.

The heads of the Assembly and Senate majority legislative parties, Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan and Majority Leader John Sampson, D-Brooklyn, said they would look at any bills calling for a change in the process, which divides the Legislature and Congress into new districts based on the most recent census data. But they made no commitments.

Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County, said he would back nonpartisan redistricting, even if his party wins back the majority in November.

Silver insisted that his party enjoys such a large majority in the Assembly (106-42) because there are so many more enrolled Democrats than Republicans in the state. He also said Democrats are better at attracting voters who aren’t enrolled in a party.

“Lassie could win a race in my district’’ if the canine of filmdom was a Democrat, he joked.

Gov. David Paterson, whose term expires at the end of the year and is not on the ballot for another one, said he hopes to negotiate an agreement on a new ethics bill before he leaves office.

Earlier this year he vetoed one passed by both houses because he said the enforcement powers weren’t strict enough. The League had urged him to sign it, on the theory it represented an advance over the status quo.

Besides Sampson, Silver and Skelos, Minority Leader Assemblyman Brian Kolb, R-Canandaigua, also attended, and state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli gave an address and answered questions via a television link to New York City.

That left Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the presumptive Democratic candidate for governor this year, as the only legislative leader or statewide elected official not to attend. A staff member said he had a scheduling conflict.

The meeting, which was streamed live statewide over the Internet, was sponsored by Reinvent Albany, a new York York City-based reform group.

Paterson passes on rapping Parker

Gov. David Paterson today passed up a chance during an interview on a radio show to criticize Brooklyn Sen. Kevin Parker for calling some of his colleagues in the Senate “White supremacists.’’

Susan Arbetter, host of the “Capitol Pressroom’’ show. pointed out to the governor that he had served for 20 years in the Senate with some of those Parker criticized, including Sen. John DeFrancisco, Dale Volker of suburban Buffalo and Thomas Libous of the Southern Tier.

When she asked if he had considered any of the whites to be racists, he drew his answer carefully.

“Not against any of those three individuals,’’ he said.

He said Parker just may be frustrated that minority-owned businesses got only two-thirds of one percent of the contract work from state agencies, even though they accounted for 9 percent of the firms cleared for state work.

He also wouldn’t get into the middle of whether Parker, who has a history of blowing up at people and just a year ago called the governor a “coke-snorting, staff-banging governor,’’ should be censured by the Senate.

“I’ll leave it to the Senate to decide that,’’ he said.

He also said he was glad that Mark O’Luck, the man appointed to the Power Authority whose nomination sparked an exchange between Parker and DeFrancisco, was confirmed by the Senate.

From bad to worse in Albany

The New York State Senate has not yet quite become the Ukraine Legislature, where fistfights broke out this week over whether to allow the Russian Navy access to Black Sea ports and members carry umbrellas to protect themselves from raw eggs being thrown at them. But it’s getting there.

While no blows have been exchanged yet, words like “white supremacist,’’ “nuts,’’ and “political assassination’’ have been thrown around as the indictments keep flying and the lack of progress on a new state budget continued.

Consider:

- Sen. Kevin Parker, D-Brooklyn, already facing a criminal complaint for assaulting a newspaper photographer, went after Sen. John DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, on a New York City radio station today.

“There’s only one kind of racism that’s functional in the world and that’s white supremacy. And that’s what John DeFrancisco, and a lot of the Republicans are, and frankly, quiet as it’s kept, some of the Democrats,” Parker said. In a committee meeting yesterday, DeFrancisco had been asking some questions about the qualifications of an African-American to serve on the state Power Authority.

Republicans were not amused.

“I am calling on Sen (Democratic conference leader John) Sampson and every member of his conference to repudiate Sen. Parker’s comments,’’ said GOP leader Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County. “Sen. Sampson should immediately discipline or formally censure Senator Parker or our conference will be forced to pursue our own action.’’

Sampson tried to find a middle ground.

“Enough with the finger-pointing, name-calling and heated rhetoric,’’ he said. “New Yorkers want results. I need members in both parties to step back and focus on what’s important: balancing the budget, creating jobs and providing property-tax relief.”

-- The “political-assassination’’ comment came from Sen. Pedro Espada, D-Bronx, who faces two lawsuits from Attorney General Andrew Cuomo - the latest for allegedly exploiting janitorial workers at the family's health clinic business by classifying them as "trainees," so they could be paid a small fraction of what state law would otherwise require.

“I repeat, this is a political assassination or an attempt at a political assassination delivered in installments and deliberately so designed to keep you from asking him the tough questions about when he announces (his candidacy for govenor) and what his view and vision, leadership would mean to the budget process, again to the hard questions that face all New Yorkers,” Espada said of Cuomo, who had no immediate comment.

-- The “nuts’’ remark came from Danny Donohue, president of the Civil Service Employees Association, the largest state-worker union. Paterson had asked the union to agree to a day-a-week furlough to help the state close a $9.2 billion budget gap. He has also asked them previously to forego a scheduled 4 percent raise and accept a delay in a paycheck.

Donohue’s remark called to mind the answer of Gen Anthony McAuliffe in 1944 when Germans who surrounded the American troops at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II to surrender. The Americans ultimately prevailed.

“Now, this was a group that was really sacrificing during World War II when they were asked to surrender by the Germans,” Paterson said today. “They were about to commit the ultimate sacrifice and [Donohue] chooses the same words in what was a historic moment in American history," the governor said.
“But this group not only doesn’t want to do anything, but they want to compare themselves as if they are making some historic sacrifice as if they are on the battlefield,” Paterson said.

Oh yes, and the Legislature failed today to heed Paterson’s request for a vote on the budget, instead heading home for the weekend. When they return for the next scheduled session on May 3, the budget will be more than a month late.

Setback for campaign-finance reform

Campaign-finance reform, a key priority of the league, suffered a rough day today in the Senate Elections Committee, with many important bills stalled, possibly for the rest of the year.

Also today, Gov. Paterson said he wants to furlough state workers one day a week until there is a new budget and also intends to ask lawmakers to stay at the Capitol for five days a week, rather than three, until a new spending plan is in place.

Measures that would have strengthened campaign-finance enforcement cut campaign-contribution limits, allowed public financing of campaigns, prohibit contributions by businesses that have been awarded state contracts and required the identification of “bundlers’’ who aggregate small contributions into large ones all failed to pass the Senate Elections Committee

Measures that did pass include making it easier for members of the military to vote, prohibiting candidates from authorizing more than one political election and requiring the identification of the sponsor of political ads.

“Clearly the important bills didn’t pass,’’ said League legislative director Barbara Bartoletti.

Committee chairman Sen. Joseph Addabbo, D-Queens, said some of the measures “needed more public input.’’ But Bartoletti said league representatives have testified on them several times around the state.

Another bill limiting the personal uses of campaign funds passed, but Brian Foley, D-Suffolk County, who faces a tough reelection race this year, just voted present, meaning other “marginal’’ Democrats also may not support it, Bartoletti said.

Paterson asked for a up-or-down vote tomorrow on the furlough plan. There was no immediate comment from legislative leaders, but they're expected to resist the idea.

Another group seeking reform

The stage is getting crowded with good-government groups, which may bode well for their agenda this year.

Just two days after former New York City Mayors Ed Koch and Rudolph Giuliani and former Gov. Mario Cuomo announced the formation of a political-action committee called New York Uprising to try to get candidates and elected officials to support non-partisan reapportionment, 26 good-government groups (including the League) today
Announced another reform coalition.

This one, called Reinvent Albany, plans to hold a session for the public in Albany on May 5 that will be shown on the Internet as well. (League members should check with their local leagues about free bus transportation to the event.)

“Albany has serious ethical problems,’’ League legislative director Barbara Bartoletti said. “The more people involved in reforming the problems in Albany, the better.’’

“New Yorkers are fed up,’’ the groups said in a letter to Gov. David Paterson. “Scandals have driven from office Gov. Spitzer, Comptroller Hevesi, Senate Majority Leader Bruno and a growing number of state legislators. Some elected officials are currently under investigation. Many of these abuses of power are rooted in the absence of effective and independent ethics and fiscal watchdogs, tough ethics laws and transparency in government.’’

Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb, R-Canandaigua, is the only elected official so far to agree to attend. Word is still being awaited from Paterson, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and the other legislative leaders.

But Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Group said he thinks most will show up.

“The place (the Capitol) is a mess and we didn’t do anything,’’ Horner said, reflecting the positions of top elected officials running for office this year. “That to me is a losing argument.’’

Cuomo: Bronx senator ripped off taxpayers

How do you know it's Earth Day in Albany? When more dirt keeps getting shoveled on politicians.

The target this time: State Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada, who was accused today of taking $14 million from his health-care clinic for his personal use, including $80,000 in meals and trips to Puerto Rico, Miami and Las Vegas.
The lawsuit was filed today by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo against Espada, who is president and CEO of Soundview Health Clinic in the Bronx, a largely taxpayer-financed facility.
Cuomo charges that Espada, D-Bronx, who switched parties last summer to give Republicans control of the Senate before switching back, of using the facility to secure a $9 million severance package for himself while running up $450,000 in credit card bills and $100,000 in campaign expenses.
"Taxpayer money was given to this not-for-profit to provide health-care services to underprivileged patients, but our investigation has found the funds flowed into the pockets of Sen. Espada and his supporters," said Cuomo, a likely candidate for governor this year. "Siphoning money from a charity would be egregious under any circumstances, but the fact that this was orchestrated by the State Senate Majority Leader makes it especially reprehensible.''
Espada refused to answer questions about the probe today, beyond calling it a “witch hunt’’ and saying Cuomo is retaliating against him for his role in last June’s coup that briefly gave control of the Senate to Republicans.
Cuomo seeks removal of Espada as president and CEO of the institution as well as the ouster of other employees and board members, several of whom are related to the senator, who approved the deals.
Among the findings of the probe, according to Cuomo:
-- Soundview gave Espada a severance package worth an estimated $9 million. The provision unconditionally guarantees Espada the payment of one year's gross pay for every year of service. If the clause were triggered, Soundview would be forced into bankruptcy.
-- Soundview paid about $80,000 in restaurant bills for 650
separate meals for Espada or his supporters. This includes more than 200
meals totaling more than $20,000 from two sushi restaurants.
-- Soundview paid for trips for Espada, his wife and his family to
such places as Las Vegas, Miami, and Puerto Rico as purported business
trips.
-- Soundview has provided Espada with what is essentially an unlimited
line of credit on a corporate American Express card. From 2006 through
mid-2009, Espada charged more than $450,000 in items he later identified
as personal.
-- Soundview gives Espada 14 weeks of annual leave on the first of
each year and allowed him to convert it to its cash equivalent to pay personal expenses. In this way, Soundview extended Espada more than $75,000 in credit, a violation of the New York State Not-For-Profit Law.
-- Espada created a company that offered janitorial services, put his
son, Pedro Gautier Espada, in charge of it, and then Gautier rigged the
bids to make sure it won the Soundview contract, which is worth almost $400,000 a year. In 2008, Pedro Gautier earned more than $150,000 from the for-profit company and from Soundview.
-- More than 150,000 pieces of Espada's campaign literature at a cost of $100,000 were paid for by or funneled through Soundview.
-- Soundview routinely pays for political campaign expenses put on Espada's American Express card.
-- Soundview provides Espada, who lives in Mamaroneck, Westchester County, with a housing allowance of about $2500 a month to pay for a Bronx co-op which Espada claimed as his legal residence for purposes of his 2008 Senatorial campaign.

Cuomo said the probe "is ongoing and developing.'' One Cuomo aide said he expected criminal charges will be forthcoming.

New reform group debuts

Some political heavyweights signed on today to the movement to clean up Albany.

Chaired by former Mayor Ed Koch and including former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former Gov. Mario Cuomo, the group, known as New York Uprising, wants lawmakers and other candidates for office to pledge to support non-partisan reapportionment - a goal of the League for years that has never made it through the Legislature.

The group, which also includes the Citizens Union, wants candidates to support the creation of “an independent, non-partisan redistricting commission to draft advisory maps for the Legislature to review and approve.’’

The group also wants the candidates to pledge to veto any plan that does not create “contiguous, competitive, compact legislative districts.’’

The practice in Albany has for decades been for Republicans to draw lines for the Senate, which it controlled from 1965 until last year, and the Democrats for the Assembly, where they have had the majority since 1975. The two houses would compromise on U.S. House of Representatives districts. Redistricting is mandated by the federal government for the elections following each census.

The custom had has raised the stakes in this year’s state Senate races, where Democrats hope to cling to their thin 32-30 majority or expand it so they can draw lines starting in the 2012 elections that would assure their control for decades. Common wisdom is non-partisan reapportionment would favor the Democrats, since there are three enrolled Democrats in the state for every two Republicans.

Republicans, whose skill at drawing the reapportionment maps is widely credited with allowing them to control the Senate for decades even as their enrollment numbers slipped, are desperate to get back the majority to keep a hand on the knife that carves up districts.

Governors, who have to sign the bill, have never seriously challenged the system, usually setting for some quid pro quo with lawmakers in exchange for their signatures. The idea of New York Uprising, as well as the position of the League and other reform groups, is to get candidates on the record ahead of time.

Already signed up GOP gubernatorial hopefuls Rick Lazio, Carl Paladino and Steve Levy. Democratic Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, now far ahead in the polls but not yet an official candidate, signed a letter supporting the concept without specifically endorsing the Uprising position.

League legislative director Barbara Bartoletti welcomed the new group to the fray.

The League “welcomes New York Uprising to the reform movement,’’ she said. “Non partisan, independent redistricting has long been a League priority. We believe elections should be about an exchange of ideas not about the drawing of lines that benefit political parties and incumbents."

Voting bill passes Senate

The Senate today gave final legislative passage to a bill that will make it easier for citizens to vote, and has been a priority of the League for almost two decades.

The lawmakers voted 35-27 to allow people to vote by absentee ballot without presenting documentation why they couldn’t, or chose not to, show up at the polls.

“People shouldn’t have to climb through hoops to exercise this fundamental right,’’ said League legislative director Barbara Bartoletti, who said the League has been pushing for the change since 1993.

The chances for the measure to become law improved last year when Democrats seized control of the Senate for the first time since 1965. The politics of the situation are marginal voters - including those who may want to use absentee ballots - are more likely to vote for Democrats than Republicans. So it has passed routinely in the Democrat-controlled Assembly for years but never came before the full Senate until today. ( A coup last year that briefly returned control of the Senate to the Republicans disrupted the bill’s chances.)

Republicans argued today that voting is a privilege rather than a right and that the bar should not be further lowered to casting a ballot.

But three Republicans - Betty Little of Warren County, Charles Fuschillo of Nassau and Thomas Morahan of Rockland - joined all 32 Democrats in voting yes today.

As part of a package to make voting more accessible, the Senate also gave final approval to measures that allow absentee ballots to be faxed and that will include voter-registration forms on absentee ballots.

Gov. Paterson is expected to sign all three shortly.

"Like robbery without a gun"

Ever get tired of working Fridays? Or wondered why state government is so expensive?

Me too.

A couple of state watchdogs provided some potential answers today as to what happens when these two human traits collide.

Comptroller tom DiNapoli and Inspector General Joseph Fisch charged in a report that a former state official Howard Dean blew off working Fridays - each and every one - for 17 years, but got paid as if he were working, costing taxpayers almost $230,000.

Moreover, he also received travel reimbursements for which he was not entitled, improperly used state for improper use of vehicles, gas and tolls, faked claims for hotels and meals and otherwise ripped off taxpayers to the tune of a total of just under $500,000.

“The findings of this audit are breathtaking,’’ DiNapoli said. Fisch called it “an outrageous scam’’ and “like a robbery without a gun.’’

Dean was director of the Department of Corrections’ Food Production Center in Rome, Oneida County from 1992 until he retired in 2008 at a salary of $112,000 a year. He headed up the facility, which is staffed by 140 inmates and 80 employees and provides meals to the entire 60,000-bed prison system.

The state is trying to get the money back and has referred the case to the Oneida County district attorney, who could press criminal charges.

Current prisons commissioner Brian Fischer pointed out that the entire 17 years of Dean ripping the state off occurred under the reign of his predecessor, Thomas Coughlin. He said soon after he was appointed commissioner in 2007, his staff got a tip about the situation and that he had a deputy commissioner, Gayle Paponik, started to review it. Dean’s travel status was discontinued that November.

“Since I became commissioner in 2007, I have repeatedly reminded all managerial staff…that they will be held accountable for all of their actions and that they must adhere to the highest ethical standards,’’ Fischer said in response to the audit.

Is this the time for reforms?

No doubt reporters were a little belligerent today when confronted with another package of budget-reform ideas put forward by Senate Democrats.

Their collective response was whoa! First you ignore reforms passed just three years ago, then you can’t reach a deal on a new budget, so you want to start talking again about making changes in the process?

The answer, when the verbal political underbrush was cut away, was, yup.

The budget was supposed to be passed by April 1, but neither the Assembly nor the Senate can come up with enough cuts to close a potential deficit of more than $9 billion.

Democratic conference leader John Sampson, D-Brooklyn, said “everything is still on the table.’’

But wait, said the AP’s Michael Gormley. You just got back from a seven-day vacation. Couldn’t you rule anything out in that period of time?

“I did a lot during my vacation,’’ Sampson said. “I reached out to a lot of individuals.’’

The new Senate Democratic plan includes, among other things, shifting the start of the state fiscal year to June 1, establishing budgets for two years instead of one, setting up an independent legislative budget office (like the Congressional Budget Office in Washington) and using the accrual method of accounting, which makes it harder to jigger the books.

In 2007, lawmakers approved a set of reforms that included mandatory open committee meetings to reach some spending decisions. But they didn’t do that either this year or last year.

So, Bill Hammond of the Daily News asked, since you just blew off those laws, why should we believe that you will live by these changes, even if they’re adopted?

Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, argued that you could still pass a budget without, say, having open committee meetings. But once you change the fiscal year, “you have changed the fiscal year.’’

In other words, the new changes would be harder to get around. Not exactly a great moral standard, but it had the advantage of sounding at least a little candid. That’s the way progress is measured in Albany these days.

Pause in the action

Jay is ill. He will resume blogging when he has recovered.

Paterson on U-Tube: support your local legislator

Just hours before the new fiscal year is to begin, Gov. David Paterson today issued a plea on U-Tube for voters to contact their local legislators and tell them they support cuts in spending.

Lawmakers, who are on vacation until next Wednesday, are deadlocked over how much to cut spending for education, health care and other state programs, whether to raise taxes on cigarettes and whether to borrow more money to meet operating expenses.

Paterson today signed a temporary-spending bill to keep the state operating until April 11 while the haggling continues and another that will delay about $2 billion in aid to local schools due tomorrow until the state finds the money to pay for it.

"..to be fair, my legislative colleagues, the senators, the Assembly members and their leaders are working very hard in Albany to try to ameliorate this problem and I don't think that the barrier is their inability to grasp the gravity of our current financial woes,’’ Paterson said. “ Rather, I think my colleagues are nervous about the cost of making these tough decisions.”

He continued, "I served with them as a legislator for over 20 years, so I think I'm sensitive to the problems that they face. And so I urge all of you New Yorkers to contact your local legislators and not to criticize them, but rather to remind them that just as you have had to make the tough choices for yourselves and your families, now they have to make those difficult decisions for the state.

"Tell them that you will support that they make these difficult decisions. Encourage them to reduce spending so that we have a more affordable economy and let them know that you will be for them if they put us on the road to fiscal recovery,’’ he said.

So far, no word of phones ringing off the hook in lawmakers’ offices. Most powerful interest group at the Capitol, from the teacher unions to hospitals to public-employee unions and other groups, whom lawmakers depend on for campaign cash, are pushing the other way - against any cuts. That’s why some are predicting a long delay before any spending plan is approved.

The Big Apple State

After some exhaustive research, which included Google and Wikipedia, I am here to shed some light on why New York is the "Empire State.''

But not too much, since the answer seems murky.

The question came to mind this week when we were losers in the federal government’s “race to the top’’ for about $700 million in education aid. How could anyone not think the “Empire State’’ is the best.

But upon further reflection, I thought, what does it mean to be the Empire State?

And for that matter, why can’t we be named after something simpler, like gardens (New Jersey), mountains (Vermont) rocks (New Hampshire), a tree (Maine), the ocean (Rhode Island) or a part thereof (the Bay State, Massachusetts)?

I also understand why Michigan, say, would rather be known as the Great Lakes State rather than say, the heart of the rust belt.

Here’s the New York story.

At some point in the 1780s, George Washington may have (nobody caught it on tape) made a reference to New York being the "seat of Empire.'' In those days, "empire'' apparently carried the connotation since lots of economic growth and progress, and not necessarily a system where one group dominates another. Back in those days (this was a long time ago) New York seemed to fit the bill.

It must have seemed apt back in the days when we were building the Erie Canal, taming Niagara Falls and becoming an economic powerhouse. All that, of course, was a while ago now.

More recently, the nickname has given critics of the state a chance to have some fun over the years. Herb London, who was interested in running for governor in 1994, referred to it as the "Vampire State'' because, as he saw it, the state was sucking the life blood out of its citizens in the form of taxes. And this was even before the MTA surcharge and the plan to tax soda!

Among suggestions from readers today included "Union State,'' since they seem to be piloting the ship of state these days, and "Umpire State,'' since then we would at least know to expect some bad calls, and we wouldn't be so stunned each time Albany screws up.

My vote would go with "Big Apple State,'' since it is already the nickname of New York City (a sportswriter coined it, referring to big payoffs at tracks) and we're one of the leading apple producers in the country.

But nobody asked me.

Senate approves temporary spending bill

The Senate gave final passage to a bill this morning that will keep state government functioning through April 11 since there is now no chance a full budget will be adopted by the April 1 start of the new fiscal year.
Most senators quickly left the Capitol today and are not scheduled to return until a week from Wednesday. The Assembly left town Friday.
Most Republicans joined in with Democrats to pass the temporary spending bill that passed the Assembly last week and is all but guaranteed to be signed into law by the governor. The final vote was 54-6, with six Republicans voting no.
One of them was Joseph Griffo of Rome, Oneida County.
“There is an erosion of confidence,’’ he said. “Deadlines need to be met. It’s unacceptable. We should continue to meet.’’
The Democrats could not have passed the bill without Republican support, since Democrat Ruth Hassell-Thompson of Mt. Vernon, who has a history of heart problems and was taken to the hospital last week, was not in the chamber this morning, and without her the Dems have only 31 votes - one shy of a majority.
The lawmakers also passed, with a little more trouble, a bill that will allow teachers to retire as young as 55 without penalty during a three-month period this year if they have 25 years on the job. Otherwise they would have to wait until 62 or get a smaller pension.
This provision was part of a deal that helped to buy the support of New York State United Teachers last fall for support of a bill that diminishes the pensions of newly hired teachers and other public workers. The vote on today’s bill, which has already passed the Assembly, was 49-11.
No word on how much the provision will cost taxpayers.
There was no progress reported after a weekend of talks on an overall budget. How much to cut school aid and health care and whether to borrow money for operating expenses are among the outstanding issues.
In another budget matter, Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb, R-Canandaigua, Ontario Colunty, has suggested that Gov. Paterson have a sincere, frank discussion with public-employee unions about the state’s dire fiscal straits.
So far unions have rejected any suggestion they put off raises, scheduled to go into effect as early as next week, that will cost taxpayers $3 billion a year, according to an analysis done by the Empire Center. Contracts are contracts, they say.

It was only a feint

Lawmakers made a feint at making progress on a new state budget today, but in the end didn’t seem to accomplish anything.

For the first time in two years, they held a legally mandated conference-committee meeting before TV cameras and the public, but reached no agreements.

The Assembly plans to pass a spending bill tonight to keep the state operating until April 11, while the Senate plans to do the same Monday morning. The current state fiscal year ends Wednesday at midnight, and with it the legal authority of the state to spend money unless the Legislature acts, passing either a budget (not likely) or the emergency bills (bet on it.).

The two houses differ on how much money to cut from education and health care, whether to raise cigarette taxes and whether to borrow up to $2 billion for operating expenses, among other items.

None of these were discussed today. Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos of Nassau County tried to get his Democratic counterpart, John Sampson of Brooklyn, to admit that the Dems’ budget plan doesn’t include goodies like property-tax rebate checks and a cap on state spending.

Sampson pretty much ignored his questions, responding instead that he was looking forward to see what Republicans want to cut (no dice there either.)

Only Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb, R-Canandaigua, brought up specific ideas, like merging state agencies. He said a whole list of cuts the Republicans have come up with will be distributed shortly to other lawmakers.

But he was widely ignored, since Republicans have only 42 votes in the Assembly, compared to 107 for the Democrats.

“The public is waiting for substantive debate on the budget,’’ said the League’s legislative director Barbara Bartoletti. “They didn’t get that today.’’

They might have a long wait.

Battle lines are drawn; who cares about openness?

Even as taxpayers got a clearer look at the differences in how the Assembly and Senate would balance next year’s budget, just how they will work out their disputes became murkier.
The Assembly yesterday passed its version of a budget plan. Here are the major differences with the Senate budget resolution that passed earlier in the week:
-- Cut $800 million from aid to local schools, rather than the $1.4 billion the Senate and Gov. David Paterson want;
-- Borrow $2 billion for operating expenses (Senate: nothing) but also don’t count on getting $700 million from refinancing state bonds as the Senate is;
-- Raise the cigarette tax by $1 a pack, to $3.75. The Senate would leave it at $2.75;.
-- Cut $126 million less from health care than Paterson proposed and the Senate OK’d.
-- Approved mixed-martial-arts exhibitions, and taxes them. The Senate would leave a current ban in place;
Neither house went along with Paterson’s plan to raise about $800 million through a tax on soda and other sugary drinks.
State law calls for the two houses to resolve these differences in public conference committees. But none have been scheduled yet and lawmakers are due to leave town tomorrow and not return until Wednesday, April 7.
The budget is supposed to be passed by April 1, but has been routinely late (sometimes a few days, sometimes months) in recent decades.
Paterson yesterday proposed a temporary spending plan to keep the state running through early April. That’s necessary because after April 1 the state has no power to spend money unless the Legislature acts.
The Assembly intends to pass the emergency bill tomorrow, but the Senate still hopes an overall deal can be worked out.
League legislative director Barbara Bartoletti said lawmakers should work to resolve their differences in public - and in the meantime try to explain to their constituents how severe the budget problem is and what sacrifices will be needed to fix it.

'Pay to play' squared

“Pay to play’’ is an old Albany tradition, long fought by the League and other reform groups. But an allegation that surfaced today seems to take it to a whole new level.

The New York Post reported today that Sen. Jeff Klein, D-Bronx, sent out a letter earlier this month to labor leaders, suggesting they contribute $50,000 to Senate Democrats to get “direct dialogue’’ with lawmakers.

These are the same Democrats who will control how much state money big union constituencies, like teachers and health-care workers, get in this year’s budget.

The invitation to join suggested that labor leaders could be members of the “2010 Labor Advisory Council’’ for $25,000, or council “chairs’’ for $50,000.

Klein’s letter promised that “the advisory council chairs will be invited to meetings with the Senate Democratic majority leadership.’’

Lobbyists get invitations to fund-raisers for lawmakers and other state officials incessantly, with sometimes as many as seven or eight events being held on a night when the Legislature is in town.

The problem, as League legislative director Barbara Bartoletti pointed out, is that “those that have the money get the access,’’ while those without fat wallets are left on the outside.

“The only solution,’’ she said, “is to have comprehensive campaign-finance reform,’’ including lower limits on contributions, more disclosure of donations and better enforcement of existing regulations.

Hoop still in place

Reformists figured one of the slam-dunks they could count on when Democrats took control of the Senate last year was a measure known as a “no-excuses’’ absentee ballot.

New York is one of the few states that requires people who want to use absentee ballots to disclose personal information about why they can’t get to the polls Election Day’ like affidavits from their employers.

The politics seemed to break the reformers’ way because typically people on the edge of whether to vote or not tend to support Democrats, while Republicans do better among established voters. So the bill for years has been approved by the Democratic-controlled Assembly but never surfaced in the GOP-run Senate.

But it turned out not to be so easy after all even after control of the Senate changed hands last year. Some Democrats, reformers were told privately, were concerned that expanding the number of ballots might make them more vulnerable to primary challenges, mostly in New York City.

Still the bill, sponsored by Senate Elections Committee Chairman Joseph Addabbo, D-Queens, and approved by the Assembly, and was poised to pass the Senate last June when the coup gave power back to the Republicans temporarily, so it died. This year, in light of Republican opposition, Democrats told reformers they were waiting for the election of their 32nd member - who turned out to be Jose Peralta of Queens - to pass it.

He was seated last week, but so far, the bill hasn’t moved to the floor, and it’s unclear why.

League legislative director Barbara Bartoletti it’s important that the bill pass.

“This would drop a barrier for voters to participate in the process without having to jump through unnecessary hoops,’’ she said.

Unnecessary hoops? For voters? In New York? So far, this one is still in place.

Not all smoke and mirrors

The Senate budget plan expected to be voted on tonight is, surprise, not all smoke and mirrors - it includes real cuts in spending, especially education and health care.

No new taxes and some gimmicks, but still somewhat fiscally sound.

The Senate made the first move in adopting a budget today, proposing a resolution that will be the basis of negotiations (supposedly in public) with the Assembly. Voting on a final budget package is still most likely weeks away.

Among the highlights of the Senate plan:

-- a cut of about $1.4 billion, or 5 percent, in aid to local schools. Education groups said it would mean the elimination of 1,400 jobs across the state.

-- a reduction in of $1.1 billion in expected health-care spending.

-- a $700 million “one-shot,’’ or one-time revenue, from refinancing state tobacco bonds.

-- no new taxes on sugary drinks or cigarettes and no wine sales allowed in grocery stores.

-- $250 million from collecting taxes on cigarettes sold on Indian reservations.

-- three prisons would close, parks would stay open and college-tuition-assistance grants would be maintained.

‘We really are biting the bullet,’’ Senate Finance Committee Vice Chair Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, said today.

But the cuts also include deep reductions to some state agencies. League legislative director Barbara Bartoletti said she feared the Board of Elections may face such severe cuts that it won’t be able to do its job of monitoring the election process.

At least initially, the Senate Democratic majority has rejected Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch’s plan to borrow $2 billion for expenses. But much more water will go over the dam before a final plan is adopted.

The Assembly is also expected to adopt its budget resolution this week - also with no new taxes, but with deep cuts in education and other spending.

One thing clear right now: the thought-to-be-all-powerful education lobbyists have some work to do to get lawmakers to agree to just keep spending level next year.

Stirrings among the GOP

The race for governor, which appeared to be likely to pit huge underdog Republican Rick Lazio against Democratic Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, was shaken up today when Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy announced he is also running for the Republican nomination.

What makes the development doubly interesting is that, until today, Levy was a Democrat.

But in front of a smiling state GOP chairman Ed Cox and other party officials, Levy signed an application changing his enrolment (it won’t actually take effect until after the election, however.)

Levy, a former member of the Assembly, has headed the state’s largest county (about 1.5 million people) outside New York City since 2003, and was cross-endorsed by Republicans in 2007 when he was re-elected with more than 95 percent of the vote.

He said today he switched parties because “reckless spending that hurts people more than anything else,’’ and he blames Dems more than Repubs for that.

The Republicans also offer him a far easier route to the general election, since any Democratic governor-wannabe would have to tangle with Cuomo in a primary. Cuomo is expected to announce his candidacy next month. Gov. David Paterson has already said he won’t run.

Levy is more liberal than most Republicans on many social issues - he’s pro-choice on abortion, for example, but is fiscally conservative. He’s also known for his fierce opposition to illegal immigration.

“This year the issues will almost be totally fiscal,’’ he said.

To get on the September primary ballot, he has to get more than half of the weighted vote at the party’s June convention (rather than 25 percent, since he is not yet officially a Republican)

And in another twist to the race, friends say Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino plans to enter the GOP race for governor. He has the support of some Tea Party members and is reportedly ready to spend $10 million of his own money on the campaign.

So while a few weeks ago Cuomo and his $16 million campaign fund seemed to be scaring off potential GOP challengers, now it appears that there will be no shortage of candidates hoping to have a chance to run against him.

How not to pass a budget

Wonder why it might be tough to get a budget passed?

While taxpayers are still waiting for each house of the Legislature to present their budget proposals, Senate Republicans today pushed a “comprehensive property-tax relief plan’’ with only the vaguest and most general ideas about how to pay for it.

While the state already has a $9.2 billion budget hole, the GOP plan would cost more than $2 billion, a GOP senator, Betty Little of Queensbury, Warren County, said this week.

She and other Republicans said that the money could be made up by a cap
on state spending, which they will push in budget negotiations. Once public conference committees on the budget are established, the Republicans promise to outline other savings in the budget that could be used to include school property-tax rebates in the new budget.

This of course is a great time not to be in charge of anything, which is the position the Republicans find themselves in, since they can point fingers and propose tax cuts and urge spending restorations without wondering whether the numbers will add up. You can almost see them salivating the closer November gets and they consider their chances of wiping out the thin (32-30) Democratic majority, knocking off incumbents who vote for a budget that will include so much bad news.

For their part, Democrats in neither house have yet to identify what they think should be done to close the budget gap. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Brooklyn, said it is unlikely his house would approve of any tax hikes. And 16 Senate Democrats signed a letter sent to Gov. David Paterson this week saying they will vote against any budget plan that includes cuts to education. (Paterson proposed a trim of 5 percent, or about $1.4 billion.) They somehow forgot to mention where the money lost from such actions should come from.

What’s next? Both houses are expected to approve some wishful thinking in their budget plans (more gambling revenue, money from taxes on cigarettes sold on Indian reservations).

The idea seems to be to avoid hard decisions for as long as possible, which from the perspective of lawmakers looks like their best political strategy. As for a fiscal strategy, it looks disastrous. It’s how we got to this point in the first place.

The sun shines in - sort of

The sun was shining brightly outside the Capitol today, and beams of it even penetrated the cavernous Assembly chamber.

But in the back rooms where key decisions may or may not be getting made, there was only the traditional darkness.

In the middle of “sunshine week,’’ the Assembly passed a package of bills designed to strengthen parts of the state’s open-meetings and freedom-of-information laws. (They were passed in 1975. Thank you, Watergate. Thank you, Richard Nixon.) The package is scheduled to be approved by the Senate tomorrow.

There’s nothing earth-shattering in the package, but League legislative director Barbara Bartoletti said the bills “will help make government more transparent, and encourage more citizens to participate in government.’’

The bills would:
-- waive the ability of governments to claim copyright protections as reasons for denial of access in most cases;
-- require governments to hold meetings in rooms big enough to accommodate expected crowds;
-- cut the time state agencies can appeal judgments against them for freedom-of-information-law violations from nine months to 30 days;
-- authorize state agencies to waive fees related to reproductions of records.

While the Assembly met in public today to pass these bills, the real action, as has been the case for weeks, will be behind closed doors tonight, when members of the Democratic majority of both houses meet to talk about the budget. Lawmakers have less than two weeks before the deadline to adopt a new spending plan, and have yet to hold serious negotiating sessions in public.

Man bites dog at Capitol

From the man-bites-dog department: In a move that shocked Albany veterans, Gov. David Paterson today signed a bill in a ceremony that had Republicans and Democrats saying nice things about each other advocates proclaiming that the measure will improve the lives of New Yorkers.

A senator even praised Paterson, the most unpopular governor in recent state history, if polls are to be believed, who seemed to be on the verge of resigning just a little more than a week ago.

It was a shocking about-face in the Capitol better known as Dysfunction Junction, where gridlock, partisan bickering and scandal have become the norm.

Paterson today signed the Family Health Care Decisions Act into law. It allows family members to decisions like whether to withhold or withdraw of life-sustaining treatment, on behalf of patients who have lost their ability to make such decisions and don’t have health-care proxies. (Only about 20 percent of New Yorkers do).

Most people think they already had the right, but didn’t, even though it has been the informal policy for many doctors, hospitals and nursing homes. The measure was first proposed in 1994, but has been held up by concerns over protections for fetuses and rights of same-sex partners.

But this year it passed both houses of the Legislature by wide margins.

“Now, families will be able to make medical decisions for loved ones who don't have the ability to do so. Patients will no longer be denied appropriate treatment, subjected to burdensome treatments, or have their wishes, values, or religious beliefs violated,’’ said Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard N. Gottfried.

The measure “is yet another progressive piece of legislation that Gov. Paterson has signed into law and he deserves our thanks for his leadership," said Senate Health Committee chairman Thomas Duane, D-Manhattan, who also gave a pat on the back to his Republican predecessor in as head of the Health Committee, Kemp Hannon, R-Nassau County.

Yipes. Next thing you know they’ll tell us they have a budget deal before the deadline…Well, probably not.

……..

Speaking of the budget, I asked Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch in a radio interview today if the state’s financial mess is worse than New York City’s near fiscal meltdown in 1975.
“This is much worse,’’ Ravitch said, in part because while the state helped the city straighten out its finances then, there is no equivalent angel for the state to turn to now.

Finger-pointing time at the Capitol

The elaborate dance among legislators trying to wring maximum political advantage (Republicans) and minimizing political harm (Democrats) from the ugly budget that has to be passed this year has begun.

Legislative leaders announced over the weekend that they have agreed to establish bipartisan committees of rank-and-file lawmakers to try to reach agreement on a new state budget in public meetings.

Democrats, who control both houses of the Legislature, want to draw the Republicans into what is sure to be a painful process as lawmakers try to figure out how to close a $9 billion budget gap. Republicans likely won’t want any part of it.

So far, Gov. David Paterson has been the budget bad guy, proposing specific steps like cutting aid to local schools by $1.4 billion, slashing health-care spending by $1 billion, closing more than 40 state parks and raising taxes on sugared drinks and cigarettes. He had been rewarded by record-low poll ratings.

Since Paterson came out with his plan in January, lawmakers have spent most of their time agreeing that the problem is serious, listening to those who oppose specific cuts and tax hikes and otherwise keeping their heads down.

But now, with the new state fiscal year starting April 1, the rubber is coming close to hitting the road. The final decision is up to the Legislature, and establishing the committees is a step towards meeting that responsibility.

This is mostly good news.

“Clearly in this fiscal crisis the public needs to know where their tax money is going,’’ said League legislative director Barbara Bartoletti.

But first, she pointed out, each house first has to pass its own budget resolution detailing its plans of how to balance the budget, so the panels of lawmakers in these public meetings will have a starting point.

“That’s what has to happen first,’’ she said.

And that’s where much of the political jockeying is likely to take place. Republicans will try to portray the unpleasant documents as the work solely of the majority Democrats. Their message will likely be that the world would be a place of lower taxes and more public services if only voters would give them control of the Legislature.

The Dems, on the other hand, will try to show that the bad news has to be borne - and that if Republicans are serious about wanting to govern, they have to join in making the tough decisions.

Can all of this be done by April 1? Of course not. But any hint of actual progress by then would be a welcome signal that lawmakers are more responsible than most New Yorkers now give them credit for.

Big problems, small solutions

Those of you who glanced at your calendars today and watch what is happening at the Capitol might have noticed that the Legislature now has exactly two weeks to close a $9 billion budget hole and pass a new state spending plan.
The nominal start of the new fiscal year is April 1, but with Passover starting at dusk on the 29th, the 26th is the real deadline.
You might also have noticed that not a lot is going on toward identifying the needed cuts and spending hikes and getting an agreement.
And of course making a deal is of huge import to average New Yorkers - the ones who
pay school taxes and like to go to state parks once in a while, visit a library and drive over bridges. It’s even more critical for the poor, sick and the elderly who depend on the state for medical care and other sustenance.
What’s being done about it? Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch unveiled a comprehensive plan this week that depends on some borrowing to help the state ease down from the fiscal precipice, along with more stringent controls on other borrowing and spending.
But Senate Republicans, whose help would most likely be needed to get any plan like this passed, came up with their own plan to, yes, cut property taxes, and knocked Ravitch’s plan. They spoke only in generalities when asked to describe how they will pay for their tax cuts, which is, of course, the nub of the issue.
By now, both houses of the Legislature should be passing their own version of a spending plan, and then start to resolve the differences between the two at public meetings. But there is no sign that is going to happen any time soon. Nobody wants to go first with a list of cuts bound to anger teachers, state-employee unions, hospitals and others who depend on state largesse.
The backdrop here is what is likely to be a series of fierce contests in November over control of the Senate. The party that emerges with a majority will hold the knife in next year’s reapportionment, which is likely to either guarantee Democratic majorities for years or give Republicans a chance to hold on while they hope political fortunes shift back in their direction. (Reform groups plan to pressure candidates for governor to pledge not to sign a gerrymandered reapportionment bill next year, but such efforts have failed in the past.)
Meanwhile, although Gov. David Paterson is still in charge, he has virtually no political capital to spend on ramming through a deal. The Senate, with its narrow Democratic majority, remains chaotic.
This is the state’s most serious fiscal problem in more than 30 years, and the people in charge of trying to meet it are in the weakest position in memory.

Reform groups hope to flex their muscles

The League is joining with other reform groups to stage what they hope will be a dramatic showing of how much citizens want change at the state Capitol.
"New Yorkers are fed up,'' a statement from the groups said today. "Scandals have driven from office Gov. Spitzer, Comptroller Hevesi, Senate Majority Leader Bruno and a growing number of state legislators. Some elected officials - including Gov. Paterson - are currently under investigation. Many of these abuses of power were rooted in the absence of effective and independent ethics and fiscal watchdogs, tough ethics laws and adequate transparency in government.''
The groups plan to descend on the Capitol on May 5 to put pressure on elected officials and candidates in this year's elections "to pledge to enact meaningful reforms.''
The agenda:
- Ensure that ethic, lobbying and campaign-finance watchdogs are independent and powerful.
- End the practice of legislators drawing their own district lines.
- Provide fairness in allocating legislative resources, including distributions of "member items."
- Reform the legislature's rules to increase transparency, accountability, and public input.
- Ban the personal use of campaign contributions.
- Eliminate obsolete public authorities.
- Establish an independent fiscal watchdog.
- Open up the government's budget books and put them on-line.
- End "pay to play" for lobbyists and seekers - and receivers - of government contracts.
- Require the public disclosure of "independent" campaign contributions and close loopholes.
- Bolster the role of small donors in the campaign-finance system.
- Restrict transfers from parties and legislative political committees to individual candidates
- Dramatically reduce the allowable size of campaign contributions.
"We want elected officials and those who are seeking office to put themselves on the line in terms of spelling out that they intend to do,'' said League legislative director Barbara Bartoletti.
The League backed a reform bill that passed the Legislature earlier this year that would have toughened campaign-finance enforcement and for the first time require lawmakers to disclose ranges of income from outside business dealings. Lobbyists would also have had to disclose any payments to legislators.
But Paterson said the bill didn't do far enough and vetoed it. Supporters couldn't get enough votes in the Senate to override the veto.
State government has been struck by an unprecedented series of scandals over the last three years, starting with Hevesi's admission that he used public workers to chauffeur his wife around and tend to her other needs. Spitzer quit two years ago tomorrow after admitting being the client of a prostitution ring and Bruno was convicted last fall of taking money from interest groups trying to influence state government.
Paterson is now being probed over his alleged involvement in an effort to get a victim of domestic violence from pressing a case against a top gubernatorial aide, and also over whether he lied under oath about how he got tickets to last year's World Series.
Groups joining with the League in the effort pushing for reform are the New York Public Interest Research Group, Common Cause New York, the Brennan Center for Justice and Citizens Union of the City of New York.
League members interested in attending the May 5 event should contact the state office at (518) 465-4162 about available bus transportation.

Budget Sweetener for Legislature from Lt. Gov.

Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch today proposed a $6 billion sweetener to lawmakers desperate not to cut spending or raise taxes next year, even in the face of a $9 billion budget gap.

As part of his plan to get the state’s spending and revenues in line, Ravitch - a key architect of the bailout plan for New York City in the 1970s - said the state could borrow as much as $2 billion a year over the next three years to pay for operating expenses.

He didn’t put it this way, but it’s the equivalent of taking out a home-equity loan to buy groceries.

“Borrowing is never a good way of solving operating deficits,’’ he said. But he added at another point, “A very limited amount of borrowing may be needed to reach our goal,’’ in part because he doesn’t think it’s politically possible for lawmakers to do the needed cutting and revenue-raising to balance this year’s budget.

He said within five years the state’s spending and revenues should be matched up. Current projections from the state Budget Division shows a $50 billion shortfall for that period.

Ravitch’s plan, which he planned to brief lawmakers on later today, would also:

-- Set up an independent financial-review board to make sure state spending doesn’t get out of control. If the board finds spending exceeding revenues, the Legislature would be required to make cuts. If lawmakers refused, the governor could make them.

-- Change the start of the fiscal year from April 1 to July 1, and potentially have lawmakers adopt a three-month spending plan soon while they ponder what changes to make for the new, later fiscal year.

-- Require the governor to submit a five-year financial plan when he proposes his budget. Now he proceeds one year at a time.

-- Make the state change its method of accounting from cash to accrual, meaning that revenues and expenditures would have to be counted when the obligation was incurred, not when the cash was received or spent. This would make it harder to manipulate the budget, he explained, by slowing down paying bills to send the obligation into another fiscal year.

Ravitch, 76, who was appointed to his job by Paterson last July, said “there has to be dramatic cuts’’ in spending, but didn’t suggest any. He said that’s up to Paterson and the Legislature.

Paterson, who before has ruled out borrowing to help balance the budget, praised the plan today.

“At its core, his plan reflects our shared view that New York's finances are on an unsustainable path and that true structural fiscal reform is urgently needed to control spending,’’ Paterson said. “Given the Lieutenant Governor's considerable experience and expertise, his proposals deserve to be heard and discussed as we move forward toward the final Enacted Budget.’’

E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center for New York Policy, a conservative think tank, called the plan “an unhelpful distraction.’’

“This adds a huge dimension of confusion and complexity when what you need is a sharper spotlight’’ on the Legislature and its failure to agree so far to spending cuts, he said.

After being briefed on the plan earlier this week, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, said it was “not dead on arrival’’ in his house, while Republican Senate Leader Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County, said he opposed borrowing and tax increases. Neither has yet publicly suggested yet spending cuts to balance the budget.

The Legislature is supposed to adopt a spending plan by the end of the month, but there has been little visible progress in negotiations with the deadline three weeks away.

It's all in the numbers

Forty-three and 115. All of you reformers out there should remember those numbers, a leading reform advocate said today.

Oh yes, and one more number, too.

“Eighty percent of New Yorkers are getting ripped off,’’ said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group.

Horner, the League’s Barbara Bartoletti, other reformers and lawmakers gathered today to push for a changes in the state’s $200 million member-item program of lawmakers and the governor doling out cash to organizations and projects in their districts.

The system has been a target of reformers for decades and little has changed. But this year something might actually happen, because “the public is really mad at us in every possible way,’’ said Assemblywoman (and former League activist) Sandra Galef, D-Ossining, Westchester County.

Horner pointed out some reasons for their wrath: former Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin, D-Queens, is now serving a 10-year prison sentence for, among other things, steering money from member items intended for Little League into his personal account. And testimony in last fall’s trial of former Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno showed that he used the funds for political purposes.

Lawmakers have resisted most changes in the past to the system. But Horner said emphasizing his numbers may make a difference this year. He said 43 out of 62 Senate members get less member-item funds than average, which is also the case for 115 of the 150 members of the Assembly. Thus, he said, 80 percent of voters are paying out to the other politically favored 20 percent.

“It’s a question of taxpayer dollars being spent fairly, and to make sure they go to groups that really need them,’’ said Sen. Jose Serrano Jr., D-Bronx, the Senate sponsor.

The bill he and Galef are pushing would require:

-- all lawmakers get the same amount of member-item money;
-- legislators to report any potential conflicts of interest with the grants;
-- the grant proposals to be made public t least 24 hours before they are approved by the Legislature;
-- all groups getting the money have to be vetted by the attorney general.

All of this may be moot this year, since it’s possible that facing a $9 billion budget hole lawmakers may not want to add $200 million in new spending.

But not necessarily.

“There have been discussions about whether there will be member items,’’ Galef said. Who knows?’’

Public pressure paying off for parks

Those of you who have been protesting proposed state-park closings should know that you’re having some effect.

Several lawmakers said this week they’re getting more mail on this issue than anything else. One, Sen. Hugh Farley, D-Niskayuna, Schenectady County, flatly predicted that money for the parks will be restored to the budget and that none will be closed.

Gov. Paterson has proposed closing 91state parks and 14 historic sites (about half the total) as part of his plan to close a $9 billion budget gap for the fiscal year that starts April 1.

The closings would save a relative pittance - a mere $11 million out of a state budget of $134 billion - and obviously would raise the ire of the millions of people who visit them annually.

It’s not yet clear how some parks would actually be closed. It’s easy to drain a swimming pool and lock up historical sites, but you can’t fence in woods or block hiking trails. Enforcing such closures would likely cost more than keeping them open.

There are several theories about the politics of the plan. First is that parks to most people in key positions of power in the state mean Central Park in Manhattan or Prospect Park in Brooklyn - not Letchworth or Saratoga or Thatcher. State parks are not such a big deal in New York City, where top state leaders reside and the city runs the big parks.

Another is that the parks cuts will be a bargaining chip in negotiations with the Legislature. Restoring the money for the parks will allow the lawmakers to look like heroes to their constituents, at a minor cost to the state treasury.

That might make it easier for Paterson (or whoever is governor by the time this is resolved) to get lawmakers to agree to bigger cuts in areas where there is real money involved, like health care, education or closing prisons.

It’s clear that the more pressure applied by the public, the less likely park closings will actually happen.

Here's a hint why the budget will be late

It’s no surprise that a coalition of education groups said today they oppose Gov. Paterson’s plan to cut aid to schools by $1.4 billion, or about 5 percent next year.

But it was a little disappointing that they couldn’t say how much teacher raises scheduled to take effect next year are making the problem worse, or what they would do to bridge the $9 billion deficit that Paterson and lawmakers agree has to be closed.

The groups, including New York State United Teachers, the state School Boards Association, the state council of PTAs and the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, held 18 simultaneous press conferences around the state to denounce the proposed cuts, which amount to about 2 percent of total spending on schools.

“Gov. Paterson’s proposed $1.4 billion cut in school funding asks the 2.5 million students across the Empire State, particularly the neediest, to sacrifice their education and economic futures of all New Yorkers,’’ said Geri Palast, Campaign for Fiscal Equity executive director.

Representatives of the other organizations said much the same thing, but then couldn’t answer some key questions.

When asked how much teacher salaries are going up around the state this year, NYSUT Vice President Andrew Pallotta said he didn’t know.

“It’s a local issue,’’ he said, even though teachers in almost all districts around the state are part of his union.

NYSUT spokesman Carl Korn later said a survey of contracts signed last fall showed raises averaging between zero and 2 percent. But he said some who answered the survey didn’t include longevity raises in their calculations.

A survey done last year by the state School Boards Association found that last year the average raise granted by 522 districts to teachers was 5.6 percent for the 2008-09 school year.

When asked what the state should do to close the budget gap (the roughly $20 billion the state sends to school districts is its single largest expenditure) Billy Easton of Campaign for Fiscal Equity said that the groups didn’t have a unified position.

Any wonder than virtually nobody thinks lawmakers have a chance of getting a state budget done by the April 1 deadline?

Another shoe drops on Paterson

The shoes continue to drop on Gov. Paterson. The one that hit him today might be the most damaging yet.

The state Commission on Public Integrity charged him with violating the state’s gift ban when he accepted free tickets to the first game of the World Series last fall at Yankee Stadium.

The ethics panel also asked Albany County District Attorney David Soares and state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to probe whether the governor or anyone else lied under oath to the commission during its investigation of the ticket incident.

Cuomo is already looking into what role if any Paterson played in a Bronx woman who said she was roughed up by a top Paterson aide deciding not to press for an order of protection.

The commission charged today that the Governor violated the state Public Officers Law Sections when he sought and obtained free tickets from the Yankees for himself, his 15-year-old son and his son's friend as well as two aides to the game in the Bronx on Oct. 28. The Yankees are listed as a group that lobbies the administration.

Paterson could have to pay $90,000 in fines if the charges stick.

Paterson told investigators that he always intended to pay the $850 for tickets for his son and the son's friend, but paid for all five he received only after being confronted by a reporter about it, the commission said. The five tickets were valued at $2,125.

Paterson declined to discuss the details of the ticket situation when asked about it by reporters today. But he said he has asked to meet with the commission.

“We also dispute that I solicited anything from the Yankees or acted improperly,’’ he said.

He also denied that he did anything to try to persuade the domestic-violence victim to back off her charges.

"I, at all times, upheld the oath of my office and never at any point attempted to influence or coerce anyone to do anything they didn't want to do," Paterson said.

Legislative leaders said Paterson needs to deal with the charges to clear the decks as they try to agree on a plan to close a $9 billion budget hole.

“These are serious allegations the governor will have to address,’’ said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan.

Paterson and the four legislative leaders met briefly in public today to start talking about the budget, which is supposed to be in place by April 1. All just made stock pledges to be responsive and/or resist tax increases.

At one point Paterson asked them what their ideas were for spending cuts to shrink the gap. None had any specific suggestions.

Top State Cop steps down

State Police Superintendent Harry Corbitt said in an interview aired tonight that he is retiring effective tomorrow, becoming the second high-ranking state law-enforcement official to leave office in the wake of the domestic-violence scandal in the Paterson administration.

Corbitt, who served less than two years as the state’s top cop, has been in the center of the storm over whether his subordinates and other administration officials pressured a Bronx woman to back off charges of domestic abuse against David Johnston, a top aide to Gov. David Paterson. Paterson has suspended Johnson while a probe is underway.

Corbitt’s retirement follows last week’s resignation of Deputy Secretary for Public Safety Denise O'Donnell, who blamed Corbitt for misleading her about the involvement of troopers in the incident.

Corbitt complained in the interview to air on Time Warner Channel 9 in Albany that he is being unfairly attacked by the media and others and felt powerless to defend himself.

"Any individual who is criticized constantly feels that pain. And in most cases there is some way to fight back,’’ he says in the interview. “But in public service there is not.’’

Corbitt, the first African-American to head the State Police, climbed the organization’s ladder before retiring as a colonel in 2004. Paterson asked him to come back as superintendent in March of 2008.

His leaving is the latest bit of news that increases the pressure on Paterson to quit. He has said he intends to serve out his term and has done nothing wrong. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is investigating what role if any Paterson had in urging the woman to drop her complaint against Johnson.

The New York Times reported today that two female members of the administration contacted the woman at the behest of the governor.

Paterson makes it official: he's not running

Gov. David Paterson made it official this afternoon: he’s not running for another term.
“I am ending my campaign for governor,’’ Paterson said a news conference in Manhattan. “I cannot run for office and manage the state’s business at the same time.’’
The announcement by Paterson came almost two years after the former lieutenant governor took over the job after former Gov. Eliot Spitzer quit in disgrace because of a prostitution scandal. Paterson’s withdrawal seems to all but assure that Attorney General Andrew Cuomo will be the Democratic nominee for governor this year, although Cuomo hasn’t yet formally announced his intention to run.
Paterson is the state’s first African American and first legally blind governor. He announced his decision not to run just a day after The New York Times published a damaging story about his potential involvement in an attempted coverup of a domestic-violence complaint against one of his top aides, David Johnson. Paterson asked Cuomo to investigate the allegations.
Paterson today denied he had done anything wrong.
“I have never abused my office. Not now, not ever,’’ he said.
Even before the domestic-violence scandal broke, Paterson looked like a long shot to keep the job he inherited. Polls showed him with record-low approval ratings and trailing far behind Cuomo in polls.
The most likely lineup of candidates for governor in the fall appears to be Cuomo versus former Suffolk County Congressman Rick Lazio, a Republican who ran against Hillary Clinton for a Senate seat a decade ago. Paterson said today he hasn’t decided whether to endorse Cuomo.

Paterson woes paralyzing state, league official says

Charges that Gov. David Paterson and State Police may have interfered in a probe of a domestic-violence incident is distracting the governor and Legislature from dealing with urgent matters like ethics reform and agreeing on a new state budget, the League’s legislative director said today.
“The only thing anybody is talking about in Albany now is this latest scandal,’’ said the League’s Barbara Bartoletti. “People in New York are suffering, and the last thing they need is inactivity in Albany.’’
The New York Times reported today that Paterson talked to a woman who claims she was beaten by David Johnson, a key Paterson aide. She initially sought an order of protection in State Supreme Court in the Bronx but later withdrew the request.
The paper also reported that unidentified members of the State Police visited the woman at her Bronx apartment - a visit she took as an attempt to intimidate her into dropping the charges, she told the paper.
In the wake of the story, Paterson announced he was suspending Johnson without pay and asked Attorney General Andrew Cuomo - his likely opponent in a gubernatorial primary later this year - to investigate.
Meanwhile, activity on adopting a new ethics bill and a state budget appear to be stalled.
Paterson earlier this month vetoed a League-supported bill that would have forced lawmakers to disclose more details of their outside income and business dealings, reshuffle the agencies responsible for enforcing ethics laws and strengthen the Board of Elections’ power to enforce campaign-finance laws.
In a message accompanying his veto - later upheld by the state Senate - Paterson pointed out that the measure would not have changed the system for financing campaigns or imposed term limits on lawmakers.
“The Governor said he had a better idea, and now he needs to do it,’’ Bartoletti said.
She also pointed out that while the domestic-violence charges and speculation about Paterson’s future is dominating the Capitol, valuable time is passing in which adopting a new state budget. They are supposed to have a spending plan in place by April 1 and are struggling on how to close a potential deficit of $8.2 billion.
Bartoletti said negotiations over a new spending plan, which traditionally happen behind closed doors, should be held in public.

How far will these education reforms get?

The state’s new education commissioner, David Steiner, sounds like he wants to lead significant change in the state’s schools, although some doubt whether he will get very far.
“We have not taken responsibility for a coherent view of education,’’ the former dean of the Hunter College School of Education who took over as the state’s top education official last October, said at a forum today. “We have a lot of difficult thinking to do.’’
As he has been doing for the past few months, Steiner today called for a statewide curriculum that he said would help answer the question, “What is an educated citizen?’’ Now local districts decide much of what is taught is classrooms.
Steiner told a group at the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany that the state has been leaning too heavily on measuring outcomes - meaning test scores - and hasn’t paid enough attention to the content of what children learn, or on the training of teachers to improve interactions in the classroom.
“We deeply believe in this country in measuring,’’ said Steiner, who was born in New York but was educated largely in the United Kingdom. “So we will not look at anything we can’t measure.’’
When asked how he plans to implement his curriculum ideas, Steiner said it would be a long, difficult battle and that all sides need to be consulted.
One observer noted afterwards that someone with more of a management background than Steiner’s might have been in a better position to push for such changes.
Steiner barely mentioned, beyond saying he knows it’s a problem, the fiscal woes facing the state’s public schools. Gov. David Paterson has proposed cutting state aid by about $1 billion next year, or 5 percent. Many of the state’s more than 700 school districts have warned of sharp cuts in services or big tax hikes unless the Legislature restores the money. Lawmakers are supposed to make a decision by April 1.
“I am deeply aware of the massive budgetary challenges,’’ Steiner said, without detailing how he thinks they ought to be met.

High court sides with judges

The state’s highest court ruled today that the Legislature should give judges a raise. But the reaction from a legislative leader indicates the jurists shouldn’t spend the money just yet.
The Court of Appeals decided, by a 5-1 vote, that the failure of lawmakers to raise judicial pay for 11 years violates the separation-of-powers clause of the state Constitution.
“We conclude that the independence of the judiciary is improperly jeopardized by the current judicial-pay crisis and that this constitutes a violation of the separation-of-powers doctrine,’’ Judge Eugene Piggott wrote for the majority.
The pay for 1,300 state judges has been frozen since January 1999, largely because lawmakers have tied judges’ salaries to their own, and any step to raise the pay of the Legislature has been considered politically risky.
State trial-level judges make $136,700 a year - a figure that 11 years ago matched that of federal District Court judges, but has since fallen far behind. The base pay of lawmakers is $79,500, although all 61 senators and about two-thirds of the 150 members of the Assembly get extra pay for so-called “leadership’’ and committee posts.
But the Court of Appeals judges today stopped short of mandating that the Legislature raise the pay of judges any time soon.
“Whether judicial compensation should be adjusted, and by how much, is within the province of the Legislature,’’ Piggott wrote. But since the current situation violates the constitution, “We therefore expect appropriate and expeditious legislative consideration.’’
However, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, who in the past has blocked judicial pay raises in the absence of any agreement to hike the salaries of lawmakers, pointed out that “the decision does not mandate any action by the Legislature at this time.’’
He added that he agreed that the pay should be raised, and that “The Assembly will consider this matter when economic conditions improve.’’
In other words, don’t hold your breath.

League worries about secret budget process

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The Legislature is back at the Capitol today, budget hearings are mostly over but there is still no indication that the key decisions will be made in public, the League’s legislative director said today.
“The public has a right to know in this difficult budget season what is happening,’’ said Barbara Bartoletti.
The hole in Gov. David Paterson’s budget proposal, which he said was about $1.4 billion two weeks ago, may have grown further, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said today.
He said tax revenues are continuing to slip so that the hole even if all of Paterson’s proposals for tax hikes and spending cuts in areas like education, health care and parks are adopted by the Legislature, a further $2 billion deficit needs to me made up.
Lawmakers are supposed to agree on a new spending plan by April 1, but few at the Capitol expect a deal to be reached by then.
Beyond the bad news likely to be contained in whatever spending plan is finally adopted, Bartoletti said she fears that much of the key decisions will be made behind closed doors.
At least one event will be public: the annual revenue-forecast meeting among experts from the state Budget Division, the Legislature, the comptroller and investment firms will be held later this week, most likely Thursday (nothing official yet.)
Then by Monday, Paterson and lawmakers have to announce an agreement on how much they think the state will collect in revenues next year.
This requirement was adopted several years ago to stop the squabbling over the admittedly subjective nature of tax collections since they depend on what happens to the economy.
But after that talks typically go underground until there is a deal.

Judge refuses to block Monserrate ouster

A federal district court judge today refused to issue a stay to prevent Democrat Hiram Monserrate of Queens from being expelled from the Senate.
If the decision withstands a potential appeal or other potential challenges, it will mean that his Senate will remain vacant until a special election is held March 16. That means neither party - the 31 remaining Democrats and the 30 Republicans - will have enough votes to pass legislation without votes from the other side, making any significant actions unlikely for the next month.
Attorneys for Monserrate, whom the Senate voted 53-8 to oust on Feb. 9, argued that the Senate had no power to eject one of its own members - only voters can do that, they said. They also contended that Monserrate had been deprived of due process.
The Senate acted after the first-term senator was found guilty of assaulting his girlfriend in December of 2008.
U.S. District Court Judge William Pauley agreed that voters should decide the issue, without the help of the courts, but that didn’t lead him to block Monserrate’s ouster.
“…The March 16 special election furthers the goals of Plaintiffs' current application to protect the voters of the 13th Senatorial District more effectively than judicial intervention," he said in his decision.
There was no immediate comment today from Monserrate, who has said in the past that he didn’t intend to run in the special election but would run for another term in November.
"While this Court concludes it has no legal basis to preliminarily enjoin the decision of the Senate, a 'fundamental principle of our representative democracy is, in (Alexander) Hamilton's words, 'that the people should choose whom they please to govern them,'" Pauley said in the decision.

Another shoe falls on Paterson

The other shoe from The New York Times dropped on Gov. David Paterson today, in the form of a story on its front page that portrays the governor as remote, unfocused and maybe even over his head as governor.
The story follows one two days earlier that said a former driver and now top aide, David Johnson, has been arrested for drug crimes and also involved in domestic-violence incidents.
The story represents another blow for the governor, who has even had trouble rounding up people to attend campaign kick-off events this weekend, has historic low poll ratings and is having difficulty raising money. Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is far ahead of the governor among Democrats who have been asked by pollsters whom they want as their party’s candidate for governor in November.
Paterson often works short days, is unavailable for hours at a time, seldom talks to state commissioners and leans on advisers with little experience in government, according to the story. He has also spent thousands of scarce campaign dollars on bills from expensive restaurants and bars in Manhattan and a resort in Florida, the paper reported.
In response, Paterson spokesman Peter Kauffmann said the article “offers no explosive revelations about Gov. Paterson. Despite a nasty and seemingly coordinated effort to attack the Governor based on nothing but rumor and innuendo, what we are left with is a profile of a sitting governor tackling historic challenges in a time of crisis for our State.’’
Paterson told The Times that “This latest kind of bashing of me is a depiction of me in what is, in my opinion, a racialized, hypersexualized and more or less dissolute context.’’
He said he resented being profiled in a way “that it appears that all I am doing is drinking, chasing women, doing drugs.’’

Should one man control so much money?

A report out today about the state’s well funded pension system could be fodder for the debate about whether one person should be in charge of the massive $129 billion common retirement fund.
A report from the Pew Center on the States found that New York is one of only four states whose obligations to pay the pensions of state and local-government workers outside New York City are fully funded. In fact, it has more than enough - 107 percent - compared to the national average of 84 percent, according to the report.
This is a little jarring because typically in most measures of fiscal health, like taxes imposed, debt owed and per-person spending, New York typically ranks near the bottom of states.
But the state’s pension system is set up differently from those in the rest of the country.
Here, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, an independently elected official, is the sole trustee of the pension fund.
In other states, when times have gotten tough, governments haven’t chipped as much into pension funds as needed to keep them fully funded. This has often happened because the governor of the state has a hand in deciding how much to set aside for pensions and doesn’t want to raise taxes of cut other spending to meet the long-term obligation.
But in New York, DiNapoli can resist such pressure, since he reports only to the voters. (OK, to be technical, he was appointed to the job by the Legislature after Alan Hevesi was forced to resign in 2007, but he has to face voters this year.)
That little parenthetical phrase might give you a clue that the New York system has had, shall we say, a few problems. Hevesi pleaded guilty to using assets of the fund for his own personal use. And investigators have also found that top officials at the fund accepted gifts from people who wanted a piece of it invested with them.
For some, the answer to the problems is to put a committee in charge of the fund, the way state teachers, New York City workers and public workers in most of the rest of the country have done it.
But today’s report shows the merit of keeping it as it is.
OK, the report also found that New York has put almost nothing aside to pay for the medical benefits of retirees. But then, neither have most other states.