Yesterday the New York State Assembly released a 2,675 page PDF detailing some $52 million worth of spending on member items (commonly known as “pork” spending) which they euphemistically referred to as "legislative initiatives" on their website.
This PDF, coming in at almost 3.5 megabytes, is somewhat unwieldy, to say the least. Though prepared with an eye-pleasing CGOmega font the document only has one project per page. Printing this compendium of secret spending could therefore cost you over 5 reams of paper. So, your friendly Common Cause/NY staff has moved the data into a handy spreadsheet and done some preliminary analysis on who is getting the funding, who is administering the funding and how much these mysterious “legislative initiatives” are costing taxpayers. Click here to download the spreadsheet as a compressed zip file.
Some quick facts and background after the jump…
Average Amount Awarded: $19,501
Median Amount Awarded: $5,000
Max Amount Awarded: $4,912,000
Min Amount Awarded: $500
Total Number of Assembly Member Items: 2675
Longest Purpose (number of characters): 458 - FUNDS WILL BE USED AS FOLLOWS: $5,000 FOR IN-STATE TRANSPORTATION FOR THE CENTERS; $2,000 FOR THE PURCHASE OF SERVICES, INSTRUCTION AND/OR EQUIPMENT FOR JASA/ROCKAWAY PARK SR. CENTER; AND $2,000 WILL BE USED FOR THE PURCHASE OF SERVICES INSTRUCTION, AND/OR EQUIPMENT FOR THE JASA/ROY REUTHER SENIOR CENTER; $2,000 FOR THE PURCHASE OF SERVICES, INSTRUCTION AND/OR EQUIPMENT FOR JASA/BROOKDALE SENIOR CENTER. PROGRAMS ARE OPEN TO ALL ON A NON-SECTARIAN BASIS.
Shortest Purpose (number of characters): 7 - PIANO.
Sadly, despite the obvious inadequacies and deficiencies of this most recent release, it actually represents more information than the public typically receives about this type of spending.
Member items make up about $200 million of the annual state budget and are doled out by the Governor, the Speaker of the Assembly and Majority Leader of the Senate in back rooms so dark and remote that the light of public scrutiny has no hope of reaching them. The practice, often criticized by Common Cause and countless other organizations, is now the subject of a lawsuit filed by the Albany Times-Union newspaper earlier this year. At issue is the fact that no one (except the leadership, and presumably the receiving organization) knows which legislator(s) arranged for the funding. $200 million in public funds are therefore distributed to projects whose merits the public has no way of determining.
The public has 30 days from yesterday to comment on the projects before the funding is released.
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