Vote New York

NEW computers for the Red Hook Public Library, a walk-in cooler for Hudson Valley Fresh, equipment for the East Durham Fire Department and funds to develop a Web site for the Ulster County Chamber of Commerce are among items state taxpayers will be paying for in the coming year, courtesy of the state pork barrel.

New York lawmakers included in the state’s 2008-09 budget some $200 million in so-called “community project funds” to be doled out to schools, libraries, police departments, churches, community groups, municipalities and nonprofit agencies in legislators’ districts.

Lawmakers say the money enables them to direct funding to critical programs within their districts.

KATHY Hammer, president of Public Access Northern Dutchess Area, the public-access television station better known as PANDA, agrees.

The station, which is struggling to recover from the theft last year of more than $20,000 and what current board members say was the mismanagement of the station by former trustees, said the three grants totaling $12,000 secured by area lawmakers will help the station improve and expand its offerings.

State Assemblyman Marc Molinaro, R-Red Hook, secured $2,000 for PANDA; Assemblyman Kevin Cahill, D-Kingston, secured $5,000; and state Sen. Steve Saland, R-Poughkeepsie, secured $5,000.

“The former board members shut the broadcast facility down,” said Hammer. “These line item allocations allow us to continue to build on the equipment we have, and to build on our commitment to get the broadcasting capabilities of the station back up.”

Likewise, Red Hook Library Director Mary Anna Egan said that, without funding secured by Molinaro and Saland, new computer equipment, including an early learning computer center for children, would remain on the library’s wish list.

AREA FIRE departments, police departments, villages and towns also are in line for what commonly are called member-item grants, as are organizations like the Catskill Elks Club ($7,250 for parking lot repairs); the Greene International Golf Association ($50,000 for its award-winning Tech Valley Youth Golf Program); the Dutchess County Sheep and Wool Growers Association ($2,500 for marketing); and the Hurley-based Pan American Dance Foundation Inc. ($5,000 for youth programming).

DETRACTORS of the practice don’t deny that, in most instances, the programs being funded through member-item allocations are laudable. But they say the amount of money doled out is anything but.

The New York Public Interest Research Group is among the most vocal critics of the process, saying it is designed to keep the ruling party in each house of the state Legislature in power.

“It’s a political spoils system,” said Russ Haven, the legislative counsel for NYPIRG. “While many of the programs may be worthwhile, the funding is divvied up in a way that is based on politics, not on the merit of the program.”

THIS YEAR’S $121.7 billion state budget includes $30 million in member-item spending for Gov. David Paterson and $85 million each for the state Senate and Assembly.

It is left to the leader of each house to dole out the funds to members. Determining how that money was distributed to the individual members of each house this year was difficult because such breakdowns weren’t available from Senate or Assembly offices.

AN ANALYSIS by the Freeman of funding allocated to local lawmakers showed state Sen. John Bonacic, R-Mount Hope, leading the pack among area senators in member-item funding, receiving more than $2.2 million for 183 projects in communities throughout the 42nd Senate District.

Next in line was Sen. James Seward, R-Milford, who received just over $2 million in pork to spread across the 51st Senate District.

Sen. William Larkin, R-Cornwall-On-Hudson, received $2.17 million to distribute in the 39th Senate District; Sen. Vincent Leibell, R-Carmel, was awarded $2.15 million for the 40th Senate District; and Saland was allocated $1.95 million for the 41st Senate District.

Among local members of the state Assembly, where Democrats rule, Cahill brought home the most bacon, handing out $233,300 to organizations in the 101st Assembly District. That’s $86,800 more than the $146,500 Republican Assemblyman Thomas Kirwan of Newburgh was given to distribute through the 100th Assembly District. Assemblyman Joel Miller, R-Poughkeepsie, distributed $119,000 to local organizations in the 102nd Assembly District, while freshman Assemblyman Peter Lopez, R-Schoharie, got $109,000 for the 127th Assembly District. Fellow first-termer Molinaro was given $106,900 to spread throughout the 103rd Assembly District.

SCOTT Reif, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick, said several factors go into determining how much each legislator is allocated, “including community need and member seniority.”

“Our members make recommendations based on programs that they believe are worthy, and then we review those requests and, if appropriate, they will be part of the final budget,” Reif said.

The Assembly uses a similar process, said Cisa Moyo, a spokeswoman for Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan.

“The idea is that the Assembly members represent specific districts, so they know best what is needed in their districts,” she said. “We put an emphasis on programs that would not otherwise be funded and that serve a public purpose. We have and have always had an internal vetting process that’s applied very rigorously.”

HAVEN, at NYPIRG, said the fact that the level of funding differs among legislators and parties is an indication that the pork program is intended to be a political slush fund.

“With districts of roughly the same number of people, there’s no other way to explain the disparity in funding except raw political power,” he said. “That’s why senior members tend to get the most money, and that’s why less influential members of the minority party in the house don’t get much money at all.”

Haven said the projects up for funding should be subjected to a real review based on quality and need, as are other budget items.

Last year, state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced his office would begin reviewing member-item allocations to ensure the programs receiving state funding “meet the legal mandate of having a public purpose.”

HAVEN said that, in most cases, critics don’t question the programs receiving funding, but rather the way the funding is awarded.

“It’s not that these programs are necessarily bad, although some of them look occasionally fishy,” he said. “It’s that there are considerations other than the merit of the program that goes into deciding which programs are funded.

“The party that controls the house – the Republicans in the Senate and the Democrats in the Assembly – their members get the lion’s share of the money, and that disenfranchises all New Yorkers,” Haven said. “It’s not based on the merits of worthiness or need of the particular group. … It’s based on other calculations, and they are very subjective and not vetted in any kind of hierarchy of need.”

SALAND concedes the process through which member-item funding is distributed to lawmakers “is anything but perfect.”

Even so, he said, “I think I would be remiss if I failed to make an effort to avail myself to this type of funding for my district.”

Saland said his office carefully reviews each request for funding and generally selects projects that focus on quality-of-life issues or otherwise would become a burden to property taxpayers.

“The vast, overwhelming majority of these projects are very important, critically important, to the respective communities they serve and often reflect an on-the-ground understanding of the community that a local legislator has,” the senator said.

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