Cuomo flip-flops on pork spending

From Capital New York:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo blasted legislative earmarks during campaigns, investigated them as attorney general and promised in 2012 that he would banish them from the state budget.

Now, he's approving them.

In the last week, leaders of the state Legislature publicly disclosed lists of earmarks they secured under the State and Municipal Facilities Program, which fiscal analysts have likened to the old “member item” program that let legislators direct money to local groups and projects at their discretion.

But unlike the past, agencies that report to Cuomo are reviewing — and signing off on — the projects before the money is released. According to critics, that means the Democratic governor is approving “pork” spending that skews to support powerful incumbents: Republicans in the state Senate and Democrats in the Assembly — even after railing against spending for “pet projects” earlier this year.

de Blasio: Tweeding is just fine

WNYC

From the Observer:

In May of last year, Mayor Bill de Blasio was blunt.

“I do think it’s time to end member items. I think that’s the smart path going forward,” the mayor, a Democrat, told reporters. He added that he respected the City Council’s desire to keep them.

“But I think this may just be one of the areas of respective disagreement,” he said.

Since then, Mr. de Blasio has done nothing to abolish so-called member items–and appears to have lost any desire to take up the fight in the future, sources say. The quiet decision to back away from a pitched battle with the City Council represents another win for the body, and may also be evidence that Mr. de Blasio’s quest to end member items was little more than a talking point.

Mr. de Blasio’s office did not return a request for comment.

In the city’s $78.5 billion budget for the 2016 fiscal year, just under $50 million was allotted for discretionary funding. The cash includes a $16 million pot of money that goes to Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, with the rest of the money being split up roughly evenly among the members of the City Council. It can then be dispensed at the individual council member’s discretion to various nonprofits, charities and pet projects.

These member items, though representing a very small slice of the hefty budget, have drawn scrutiny from good government groups, reporters and some elected officials. The system, critics say, can breed corruption by giving politicians the ability to reward allies with taxpayer money and patronage. Used in the worst way, member items can be a vehicle to buy votes.

Mr. de Blasio may be done trying to fight this battle with the Council, sources say. The reforms to member items put in place last year—a more equal distribution of funding based on poverty levels of the 51 districts—appeared to placate the mayor. Previously, the speaker had sole discretion to award member items as he or she saw fit, and members close to the speaker often brought home the most cash.

And the tweeding continues...

From the Daily News:

The City Council doled out more than $50 million in taxpayer cash to favored nonprofits in a list of “member items” released Thursday.

The $52.6 million in discretionary cash — which Mayor de Blasio vowed to abolish, but quickly gave up and let the Council keep giving out — is part of the $78.5 billion budget set to be voted on Friday.

The biggest winner was the Hispanic Federation, which brought in $666,000 in grants, mostly from Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, as well as Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Manhattan). Next up was Catholic Charities, which took home $550,500.

Also in the top 10 was the sprawling nonprofit founded by disgraced ex-Assemblyman Vito Lopez, the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council. It got $324,400.

Paul caught playing Pinocchio

From the Queens Gazette:

On June 27, the City Council passed the fiscal budget for 2015. This budget was significant on many fronts as our children, seniors, schools, cultural institutions and many new initiatives were included and protected in the $75 billion budget. However, for residents of District 19, history was made. Councilmember Paul Vallone secured more than $6.7 million for much needed capital and expense projects throughout his communities. To put this year’s budget in perspective, the amount is triple that was received from the previous Councilmember, Dan Halloran ($2.2 million). This increase in funding will allow Vallone to provide nearly $3 million for his district’s schools and more than $1 million each to both libraries and parks in his district.

So Vallone insults his constituents' intelligence by insinuating that it was his great skills as a negotiator that got him triple the funding of what Halloran had received, when, in fact, it was because of new council rules that divided the funding evenly between the council districts? And the Gazette goes along with this?

Speaker is still a pork princess

From Crains:

A nonprofit organization founded and represented by the chief political consultant of Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito saw its pork-barrel funding quadruple in a speaker's first budget, through a system that critics say remains politicized despite reforms.

Of the $1.3 million windfall allocated to the nonprofit Hispanic Federation in the city budget passed last Wednesday, more than $830,000 came from a newly created program funded by monies directly under Ms. Mark-Viverito's control. The lobbying firm that serves as her campaign consultant, the Manhattan-based MirRam Group, specifically lobbied lawmakers including Ms. Mark-Viverito to create the fund.

Luis Miranda, a founding partner of the MirRam Group, who is close to Ms. Mark-Viverito, founded the influential Hispanic Federation in 1990 and now serves as its paid lobbyist. The Hispanic Federation has also paid more than $680,000 for "consulting" to MirRam and a firm registered to Mr. Miranda and his wife, the New York Post reported in 2012.

Melissa takes 1st step at reform

From the Daily News:

The City Council speaker would be stripped of the power to determine how much each lawmaker gets in member-item funding, under a set of rule changes to be proposed on Tuesday.

Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito is set to sponsor the bill, which a majority of council members have said they’d support. The bill would give each council district in this year’s budget the same amount of money, which lawmakers can dole out at their discretion, sources said. The allotment could be increased by up to 25% based on the poverty level in a district, sources said.

Critics have long bemoaned how the current arrangement allows the speaker to play favorites by slashing funding for opponents or those who simply failed to fall in line on a particular issue.

Addabbo wants member items back

From the Times Ledger:

While most legislators are busy haggling over pre-kindergarten funding and campaign finance reform in the state budget, state Sen. Joseph Addabbo Jr. (D-Howard Beach) has renewed his bid to secure money for Queens nonprofits.

Addabbo said he met with Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier this month and urged him to institute an alternative framework for distributing state funds to community organizations, schools, senior centers and neighborhood projects after the executive curtailed lawmakers’ access to member items in 2010 amid a spate of scandals involving the so-called member items.

The state budget once included a lump sum for generic aid to schools, corporations, municipalities or nonprofits, which legislators would direct to local initiatives.

“I said, ‘Governor, I don’t mind that you took it away from me ... but you never replaced it and now I have senior centers, veterans posts, after-school programs suffering,” Addabbo said, before listing organizations that he once directed funding to that have since closed due to a lack of money, including the Queens Multi-Service Center in Glendale, which provided case management for seniors, and the Forest Park Senior Center.

The senator has reintroduced a bill he drafted last year that would maintain the money once funneled through member items, but continue barring legislators from controlling it by having the state vet organizations and award financing through grant applications.

No senators have signed onto the bill and it does not have a sponsor in the state Assembly.

Leroy Comrie supported shady doctor

From Capital New York:

A nonprofit executive accused of pocketing hundreds of thousands of local, state and federal grant funds intended for public services in New York City was arrested, the state attorney general's office announced Thursday.

Dorothy Ogundu, president of Angeldocs, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation billed as a health clinic for the poor, allegedly spent portions of 12 government grants to pay the mortgage and utilities on a commercial property she owned, make improvements to that property to increase its value, purchase and ship vehicles to Nigeria and make other personal purchases. The funds were intended to improve the clinic facility in Queens and help her operate it.

Of the $373,000 in government grants Ogundu, a Nigerian doctor, is accused of stealing, $91,000 was from New York City, $87,000 was from the state and $195,000 was from the federal government.

From NY Post via True News for Change NYC:

The City Council dished out nearly $147 million for pet projects throughout members’ districts, including a grant to a dysfunctional medical center in Queens that even Mayor Bloomberg’s agencies doubt should get taxpayer money. Included in the massive list of “member items” — funds individual council members dole out to non-profits — is a $5,000 allocation to Angeldocs, whose city funds are under examination by the city Health Department. Last year’s taxpayer-funded council grants to Angeldocs were reviewed in April by the Department after The Post reported it was delinquent on property taxes and its only staffer, Dr. Dorothy Ogundu, refused to reveal details about her practice. Despite that, Councilman Leroy Comrie (D-Queens) appropriated another $5,000 for the clinic, which Council Speaker Christine Quinn has yet to approve.

Cleanup Jamaica Queens has a "12 Years of Comrie" retrospective.

Council members attempting to take bitchiness away from next Speaker

From DNA Info:

During her eight-year reign as City Council Speaker, Christine Quinn has been accused of running the group with an iron fist — doling out cash to supporters while stripping the same from dissenters, and holding back broadly popular bills from coming up for a vote.

But in the wake of Quinn’s significant loss in the Democratic primary last week, four returning City Councilmen are reaching out to the rest of the membership in hopes of coming up with a plan that would significantly check the power of the next speaker and instill a measure of balance in the chamber.

While all four of the councilmen say conversations with other members are just beginning, they have a set of initial ideas for checks and balances in mind.

First among them is a plan to get proposed legislation on the table for discussion with or without the speaker's approval.

“The idea is that if you have legislation, there should be a mechanism that it can actually be written, whereby it gets introduced, and whereby it can get a hearing,” Greenfield said.

“We’re looking at making sure that bills and laws have a larger space to be discussed, no matter who put it in and no matter what it is," said Williams.

Another idea is to bring greater equity to the distribution of funds to members. Quinn's critics have regularly accused her of using the process of doling out member items to reward friends and supporters, while cutting back funds to her enemies, regardless of overall needs in individual members’ districts.

Queen of tweeding

From the Daily News:

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn doled out hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds from the just-passed city budget to nonprofit groups whose board members and executives have given money to her mayoral campaign.

The Daily News examined the two dozen organizations that received the biggest grants from Quinn and found that 14 had ties to contributors who gave or raised a total of more than $210,000 in support of Quinn’s candidacy.

The contributions came from directors and staffers of those nonprofits and their immediate families, according to campaign finance records.

The groups received more than $3.1 million in grants in the city budget passed last week from the so-called “speaker’s list” of more than $15 million for nonprofits that Quinn controls, plus member items for her own district. Each of the 24 groups got at least $175,000.

The Council’s member item system has been attacked by watchdogs who say it fuels the perception that pols are using taxpayer cash to curry political favor.

City Council funding housing lobbyists

From the Wall Street Journal:

One of Christine Quinn's signature pitches as she runs for New York City mayor is a housing plan that would create 80,000 new low-cost apartments with prices that potentially could stay below-market rate forever.

The City Council speaker's proposal for so-called permanent affordable housing is attracting resistance from many low-cost housing advocates, who say it would make some types of buildings harder to finance and result in fewer units overall. But one of the groups has become the plan's most active supporter. The Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development has lobbied city officials on the issue and produced a series of reports warning of the dangers of losing cheap apartments, laying out the benefits of permanently affordable housing.

The nonprofit group, which has publicly supported permanently affordable housing for several years, requested $100,000 in city funds for each of the past three years to advocate for the issue, and the funds were granted by Ms. Quinn, according to the speaker's office. A contract with the city says the group—a registered lobbyist that has an operating budget of about $1 million—must use the money to "convince the state and city to incorporate permanent affordability" into government housing policy—the idea on which Ms. Quinn is campaigning.

Civic groups said the use of city money to support public advocacy by a lobbyist is unusual. The grant, also known as a member item, was drawn from a pot of less than $17 million in 2012 over which the speaker has sole discretion.

Porking the public

From the Daily News:

Two City Council members running for Manhattan borough president have showered taxpayer cash on nonprofit groups whose boards and staffers have contributed to their campaigns.

City Councilwoman Jessica Lappin (D-Manhattan) raked in nearly $250,000 in hundreds of campaign contributions from board members at 46 nonprofits she's slathered with pork.

And a Daily News review of the 25 groups that got the biggest grants from Councilman Robert Jackson found that at least 20 of them had board members or employees who have given to his campaigns.

All 51 members of Council are given at least $400,000 to hand out to nonprofits that help people in their district plus sometimes millions more to help nonprofits with new construction projects.

The pork has a checkered history with several Councilmembers busted in recent years for illegally using the funds to enrich themselves or their careers.

Vito's non-profit still rolling in state dough

From the Wall Street Journal:

A Brooklyn social-services network that has been the subject of investigations by the city, state and federal governments and has close ties to Assemblyman Vito Lopez is poised to receive nearly $2 million under New York's latest budget deal.

The $1.9 million grant to the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council is part of an Albany tradition known as a "member item," an earmark with an anonymous sponsor slated for a nonprofit group. The grant would pay for the council's "community youth capital construction program," the purpose of which isn't described in the budget.

Lawmakers plan to vote this week on the item, part of a 1,023 page Aid to Localities budget bill. The grant's sponsor wasn't disclosed.

The last member-item funding was approved in 2010 under Gov. David Paterson, but all of the money wasn't spent right away, and there was $136 million still left to be spent for member items when Mr. Cuomo took office in 2011. After he and lawmakers couldn't agree on a plan to shift that money elsewhere, Mr. Cuomo and lawmakers have been drawing down the funding gradually for member items.

Mr. Cuomo proposed spending the last of the $57 million in that pot of money. Matt Wing, a spokesman for the governor, said the budget doesn't include "new funding for Ridgewood Bushwick" and said the money was approved before Mr. Cuomo took office. The $1.9 million earmark for Ridgewood Bushwick wasn't made until this year, according to state budget records.

Representatives of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Senate GOP leader Dean Skelos and Senate Democratic leader Jeff Klein didn't respond to messages.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's public integrity bureau is investigating Ridgewood Bushwick, a person familiar with the probe said. The inquiry's scope hasn't been disclosed.

Ridgewood Bushwick has received member items in the past, including a $150,000 grant in 2011 and more than $800,000 of economic development funding from the Cuomo administration that same year."

Hmmm. Why wasn't the sponsor disclosed? Why were we told there was no member item funding for the past 3 years when there was?

Tweeding.

What's Cooking?

From the NY Post:

New York state Assemblywoman Vivian Cook allegedly funneled thousands of dollars in public money to a corrupt fellow legislator — and was then rewarded with lavish shopping trips underwritten by taxpayer funds, The Post has learned.

Cook — a 75-year-old Queens Democrat first elected to the Assembly more than two decades ago — helped procure the government money for an organization run by former state Sen. Shirley Huntley, according to several sources.

Huntley, a fellow Queens Democrat, pleaded guilty earlier this week to charges linked to her embezzlement of nearly $90,000 in public money from that organization, known as the Parents Information Network (PIN).

When Huntley appeared in court, she spoke about how her murky arrangement with Cook guaranteed that a pipeline of tax dollars flowed to the nonprofit education charity, with the money later siphoned off to pay personal expenses.

“I have an agreement with a member of the New York state Assembly,” Huntley told a judge.

“This person ensured that state funds would be directed to PIN for what is known as ‘member items,’ ” Huntley explained. “Once PIN received the state funds, I alerted this person, and together we used PIN’s funds for personal shopping.”

Although her name was not mentioned in court, Cook has been identified as the state Assembly member who earmarked the tax dollars for Huntley’s private organization, according to several sources.

And it was Cook who joined Huntley on many of these private shopping excursions, which were financed with the embezzled government funds, according to several sources.

Member item pork is once again shady

From the NY Post:

The City Council dished out nearly $147 million for pet projects throughout members’ districts, including a grant to a dysfunctional medical center in Queens that even Mayor Bloomberg’s agencies doubt should get taxpayer money.

Included in the massive list of “member items” — funds individual council members dole out to non-profits — is a $5,000 allocation to Angeldocs, whose city funds are under examination by the city Health Department.

Last year’s taxpayer-funded council grants to Angeldocs were reviewed in April by the Department after The Post reported it was delinquent on property taxes and its only staffer, Dr. Dorothy Ogundu, refused to reveal details about her practice.

Despite that, Councilman Leroy Comrie (D-Queens) appropriated another $5,000 for the clinic, which Council Speaker Christine Quinn has yet to approve.

Comrie couldn’t be reached for comment last night.

Quinn’s spokeswoman, Maria Alvarado, pointed out that many member items have not been approved and allocated yet for Fiscal Year 2013, which begins Sunday.

The council also gave $573,589 to the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, the massive charity run by Brooklyn’s Democratic Party chairman, Assemblyman Vito Lopez.

Raises for corrupt pols

From the NY Post:

Consider: Since 2000, five Assembly members and four senators (not including Spano) have been convicted of felonies — felonies! — ranging from receiving bribes and embezzlement to outright theft. Another five have been convicted of misdemeanors. Three former senators and one current assemblyman face pending corruption charges.

It’s hard to believe that Silver, speaker since 1994, and his colleagues could be so oblivious to the crime wave surrounding them. The looting of member-item grants funneled to nonprofits has gone on for years and has been reported on extensively.

So here’s a proposition for Silver: If the Assembly and Senate can go five years without having a single member convicted, he gets his raise. Conversely, every time a legislator or ex-legislator is convicted of a crime related to his office, all legislative salaries get cut.

Taxpayers no doubt would save a lot of money under this formula.

Golden in tweeding scandal

From City & State:

Brooklyn Sen. Martin Golden has steered at least $770,000 in taxpayer funds to a nonprofit neighborhood group he founded, which often used the money to sponsor events that promoted the senator, records and interviews show.

The member-item spending went to the Bay Ridge-Bensonhurst Beautification and Preservation Alliance, which held a summer concert series and ran a free bus service for neighborhood seniors – both named for Golden.

The nonprofit’s executive director lobbied Golden last year about a bill the senator later introduced. Its main paid consultant for the concerts was also a paid staffer in Golden’s Senate office at the time. And Golden himself is still listed in state records as the nonprofit’s registered agent.

Golden’s top aides say the deep connection between the senator and the nonprofit poses no conflict, and also reflects an Albany custom of directing member items to groups linked with governmental staffers – at least until then-Attorney General Andrew Cuomo cracked down starting in 2007.

What Quinn should and could do

From the NY Post:

...the Seabrook scandal wasn’t an isolated action but part of a persistent pattern. The responsibility for deterring corruption in the City Council lies with Quinn, who has failed to hold her members accountable.

In April 2008, the putrid swamp of slush funds touched the speaker herself. Her office apportioned millions of member-item dollars for what The Post called “bogus” or “phantom” grant groups, so the speaker could ladle out the member-item gravy later, at more propitious political moments. Moreover, the speaker benefited from this trickery: The Post reported then that about a quarter of the mystery funds went to Quinn’s own district in Manhattan.

In June of 2009, it was revealed that Councilwoman Carmen Arroyo directed member-item dollars to a charter school headed by her nephew, who was forced to resign after being charged with embezzlement. The next month, Councilman Miguel Martinez resigned and pleaded guilty, admitting to stealing more than $100,000 that he had directed to a not-for-profit he controlled. More than half of those pilfered funds were member-item funds. Only after all that did the Seabrook case come to light.

A principled speaker would have connected these dots and moved decisively to close the doors for such abuses. But Quinn has instead preferred to go along to get along.

She keeps a breathless schedule of thinly veiled campaign stops, using her colleagues as validating props, rather than putting protections in place to protect taxpayers from her members’ avarice.

What could she have done differently?

First, set up an independent system to review the quality of member-item proposals. Independent eyes should provide a thumbs-up on substance before a project is funded.

Second, institute a system where no member item gets funded without a signed statement from the sponsoring member of the City Council. That statement would attest that the member (and also his or her family and staff) has no business relationship with and has received no money (even indirectly) from the entity receiving the member item.

Had this provision been in place, Arroyo and Seabrook’s actions would have been per se violations of City Council rules. This reform should be augmented by a state law, treating a violation as a felony.

Third, announce that no member items will be funded until both those reforms are enacted. Cutting off the slush-fund spigot would get her members’ attention.

In fact, if Quinn were serious about protecting taxpayers, she could put all three measures in place now.

Does this ever end?

From Capital Tonight:

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Comptroller Tom DiNapoli announced today that four people — including an aide to Queens Democratic Sen. Shirley Huntley — will be indicted for filing fraudulent documents in order to pocket $30,000 in member-item cash meant for a non-profit.

The indictments and ongoing investigation is the fruit of an agreement between their offices to audit and investigate public malfeasance. The indictments also help the attorney general contradict claims made by his primary and general election opponents last year that the then-state senator would not aggressively pursue his Democratic colleagues once he moves to the AG’s office.

The investigation found that the president and treasurer of the Parent Workshop, Inc. filed phony documents with the state in order to receive public money via a legislative member item. The indictment says that instead of using the money for public programs, two of the defendants pocketed about $29,950.

The indictment names the non-profit’s president, Patricia Savage, who also serves as an aide to Huntley, along with Lynn Smith, the organization’s treasurer who also shares a residence with Huntley. Officials allege that the defendants falsely claimed they would use the money for workshops and to conduct outreach to parents on the workings of the New York public school system.

NY Times editorial against "slush funds"

From the NY Times:

All members of the New York City Council have long enjoyed a slush fund, an annual allowance that is supposed to go to a soup kitchen or senior center or other nonprofit social program in the district. The amount of money for each district seldom depends on need; it comes courtesy of the Council speaker, who holds the purse.

This year, Speaker Christine Quinn has $49.6 million for the so-called member items: $13 million divided equally among Council members; $16.6 million for her own items; and almost $20 million more to spread as she pleases among the Council districts. At the top of her list was Domenic Recchia, whose Coney Island-Brighton Beach district got $1.6 million to spend. The Council districts that got the least — $362,000 — are represented by Helen Foster and Larry Seabrook of the Bronx.

The system is stacked politically. Nothing breeds good will — and more votes — in the local district like a new ballpark, courtesy of the Council member. It has also been an invitation to corruption. One former Council member, Miguel Martinez, was sentenced to five years in prison, partly for stealing member item money. Mr. Seabrook is awaiting trial on charges of illegally routing his share to friends, family and himself but still gets that $362,000.

Scott Stringer, the Manhattan borough president, recently issued a report that highlights the favoritism and capriciousness of the system and calls for scrapping member items altogether. Mr. Stringer, who reportedly has mayoral ambitions, insisted that the report was not aimed at Ms. Quinn, another potential candidate. His study immediately led reporters to ask about his own member items (borough presidents get them too) — $504,000 this year. Both he and Ms. Quinn have been rightly asked how they can justify receiving campaign contributions from some of the nonprofit groups seeking these grants.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo got the State Legislature to do away with its member item pot — $170 million worth — for this year. That was a budgetary move, not a recognition of the system’s inherent corruption. Ms. Quinn has worked to make the process more transparent and to require more accountability from groups receiving the money. It is not enough. The whole tainted system should be scrapped and the money doled out openly and fairly through regular city budgets.