Are we getting what we pay for in Albany?

By the time this goes to press, the State Legislature will most likely have adopted -- albeit a little late -- its record-breaking 2009-2010 budget: a $132 billion spending plan that raises total spending by more than $10 billion (8.5 percent) over last year.

The budget will include more than $170 million in so-called member items, most of which are and will remain unitemized in the budget documents. They will be doled out by members of the Senate and the Assembly, with little opportunity for advance public scrutiny, in proportion to the members' political muscle in the state capital. Basically, it's a $170 million slush fund for state legislators to use as they see fit.

This, quite understandably, has a lot of people oinking about "pork barrel spending" in Albany.

And while this practice is ripe for abuse by unscrupulous politicians (What? Unscrupulous politicians in Albany?), it's also something of a scapegoat and a distraction from what's really ailing the state's fiscal condition.

I'm certainly not defending the practice of legislators setting aside that kind of dough to be quietly divvied up behind closed doors in ways that reward supporters, spread good will on the home front and help ensure incumbents' re-election.

But -- time for a reality check, folks. That pretty much describes the entire budget process to a T, doesn't it? Closed-door meetings in which the state's power brokers divvy up the pot in ways that reward supporters and special interests, spread good will on the home front and help ensure incumbents' re-election. If this practice were limited to the $170 million in "member items," we taxpayers would have it made. Instead, Albany's long-standing budget-making tradition -- the practice of "three men in a room" brokering deals with millions -- uh, make that billions -- of our tax dollars, got worse instead of better under one-party rule in Albany this year, despite the Democrats' promises of open government, transparency and accountability. This year, now that Democrats have control of the Senate (tenuous as it may be) there was no counterbalance to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. The other two men in the room -- a weak and ineffectual Gov. David Paterson and a weak and ineffectual Senate Majority Leader Malcom Smith -- went along to get along. They both need Silver to survive, politically. He was calling the shots all the way. When the deal was done, it was, as usual, presented for the inevitable rubber-stamping by the full chambers. And inevitable it is.

The State Senate's Web site has the various budget documents posted for public inspection. That's a good thing, of course. But I dare you to go make sense -- real sense -- of any of it. Color me crazy. I tried. I scrolled through hundreds of pages of appropriations bills and budget schedules. Lots and lots of numbers for countless numbers of programs, agencies and budget lines. Numbers so big, they begin to lose meaning. A 100 million here, 200 million there, pretty soon you're talking real money. It's genuinely mind-boggling.

One thing that stuck with me following my attempt to understand the state budget deal: It costs New York taxpayers nearly $200 million just to fund the operations of the State Legislature. Member and staff salaries, stipends and fringe benefits, travel, supplies, printing and postage (to send us those attractive, well-timed "legislative reports" just before the biennial elections, boasting about what a fine job they're doing fighting to protect taxpayers). Then there's overhead, like utilities, "telephone and telegraph" -- telegraph? really? -- and millions in unspecified "contractual expenses." So many questions, so many numbers, so little time and opportunity for answers. For instance, since taxpayers are spending upwards of $145 million on member and staff salaries and benefits, why are we also spending $13 million on something called the legislative bill drafting commission? Isn't bill drafting part of the members' jobs? And what about more than $900,000 for the "legislative messenger service" or the $213,000 for the "legislative health service?" That's more than $1 million to run documents and dispense aspirin for our "representatives."

Why are we spending so much dough on 212 legislators, their staffs and all the bells and whistles that go along with it, when, in the end, it all comes down to what one man, Manhattan Democrat Sheldon Silver, wants, anyway? The rest is all window dressing. Very expensive window dressing.

So in a budget that eliminated STAR property tax rebates and failed to address inequities in state aid to education, I'll take those local member items, thank you very much. They represent a few crumbs relative to what we send to Albany, but at least it's something.

Ms. Civiletti invites you to join a discussion of this topic at civiletti.blogspot.com. Her e-mail address is denise@timesreview.com.

What those earmarks mean to us (or not)

recently came across a book called "America the Broke: How the reckless spending of the White House and Congress is bankrupting our country and destroying our children's future." Of course, given the economic news we've been living with since last fall, I couldn't resist it. I was especially intrigued by the book's 2004 copyright. Had its author, an economics professor in Arizona, foreseen what we'd be going through just a few years down the road?

The short answer is no; Professor Gerald Swanson at the Eller College of Management of the University of Arizona had not foreseen the financial industry crisis that triggered the global economy's current tailspin. But what he had to say about deficit spending, the national debt, our trade deficit and the federal government's fiscal imprudence was cause for alarm -- especially since the spending practices Prof. Swanson rails against in his book pale by comparison with recent activity in Washington. I'm talking about bailout upon bailout upon bailout, followed by The Stimulus Package -- spending trillions we don't have -- followed by the $410 billion spending bill passed this week just to tide the government over till September. That $410 billion is over and above the defense and homeland security bills Congress sent to former President Bush.

The latest rage among the yapping heads on TV "news" programs these days is "earmarks" -- funding for legislators' pet projects. While the 9,000 or so earmarks in the so-called omnibus spending bill total some $7.7 billion in spending, according to the nonpartisan group Taxpayers for Common Sense, earmarks are, I'd say, the least of our worries. Sure, $7.7 billion is nothing to sneeze at, but, it is but a fraction of overall spending (independent of the stimulus package.) As Time magazine writer Michael Grunwald wrote: "... blaming the earmark process for wasteful spending is like blaming the Internet for porn. It is just a convenient delivery device, and it can have good uses as well as frivolous ones."

I downloaded a database of earmarks spending from the Taxpayers for Common Sense Web site (taxpayer.net) It was interesting. It's comforting to know that, while taxpayer dollars are being doled out by members of Congress, our own Rep. Tim Bishop has a place at the trough. He scored almost $10 million for Long Island, including some big-ticket funding for Army Corps of Engineer projects on the ocean and at Shinnecock Inlet. But it was bothersome to see how little of the congressman's pork-barrel spending came to our neck of the woods. Of that $10 million, the North Fork saw just $19,000 (not counting a $500,000 grant to The Nature Conservancy for seagrass research and restoration, which may help get to the bottom of the disappearing eelgrass on the North Fork.) Yes, that's $19,000 (no zeroes missing) out of $10 million.

Mr. Bishop's earmarks, according to the database, include lots of spending on the south shore: $500,000 to replace a county sewage treatment plant ocean outfall pipe; $475,000 for ferry terminal improvements in Patchogue; $190,000 for the Shinnecock Indian Nation's construction of a preschool; $2 million for work to be done between Fire Island Inlet and Montauk Point, $3.2 million for Shinnecock Inlet; $720,000 for Lake Montauk Harbor; $100,000 for Moriches Inlet; $191,000 for Montauk Point; and $119,000 for the Forge River watershed. Other projects our congressman deemed worthy of funding: $214,000 to the Stony Brook University journalism school for a partnership program to teach scientists how to effectively communicate with the public and the press; $245,000 for the Suffolk District Attorney for prosecuting gang-related firearms crimes; $196,514 for the Middle Country Library Foundation in Centereach; and $133,000 to the Smithtown Fire District for facilities and equipment.

Time's Mr. Grunwald observed: "Earmarks were made for hypocrisy; they're always reprehensible when they're in someone else's district."

Or in some other corner of your own.

Prof. Swanson, by the way, told me that the disastrous scenario he lays out in his book is still waiting for us around the corner. What we've seen in the past year is, in his opinion, only a precursor of things to come unless Congress and the president get deficit spending, our national debt, and trade imbalance under control. Unfortunately, I think he's probably right.

Budget must be discussed

Budget must be discussed

Denise Civiletti

The town budget process is typically tedious but very important.

What question is more fundamental than how our elected officials spend our tax dollars — except maybe how much of our hard-earned dollars government will take for taxes? The answers to both lie in the budget.

However, budgets are easy to manipulate to the political advantage of the person controlling the budget process, the town supervisor. Every two years, you can bet the sitting supervisor, whoever he may be, presents a budget that produces the lowest possible tax rate. There's even a name for it: "election year budget," a document that uses every gimmick imaginable to keep the tax rate increase low to please voters. Often election year budgets are unrealistic. Sometimes they are downright irresponsible. Supervisors have been known to prepare budgets that purposefully underestimate known expenses, leaving it to the Town Board to restore necessary funding on crucial line items. Then the supervisor can tell potentially angry taxpayers (voters): "My budget held the line on taxes. The Town Board hiked spending and taxes." It's an unconscionable practice — and violates the supervisor's duty as budget officer — but it's the oldest "election year budget" trick in the books and one very frequently employed by sitting supervisors of all political stripes.

That's why the budget process has typically been long and, often, contentious.

Phil Cardinale prides himself on what he calls transparency in government. He's got the TV cameras rolling in every work session and regular meeting of the Town Board. That's great.

But if business is being transacted outside those televised meetings, the rolling cameras are meaningless.

I'm afraid that's the case when it comes to the fundamental question of how our town government is spending our tax dollars. The budget process Mr. Cardinale has implemented has effectively foreclosed public discussion and scrutiny of the supervisor's tentative budget. He has not held a single budget meeting with the Town Board. One is scheduled to take place, finally, at today's work session — but only because the three Republican members of the board demanded it this week. My question is: What took them so long?

Mr. Cardinale told me on Friday he had council members meet "two by two" with the town's financial administrator to discuss changes they wanted to make to the supervisor's proposed budget. (If three board members are in a meeting, it must be open to the public, you see.)

Former Supervisor Jim Stark, Mr. Cardinale's challenger in this year's election, in last week's paper accused him of "cooking the books" — overestimating revenues and underestimating expenses.

Are Mr. Stark's accusations valid, or simply political grandstanding? Who knows? Thanks to masterful manipulation of the agenda and budget process by Mr. Cardinale and a readily manipulated Town Board, which has given the supervisor a pass on this, a public vetting of the supervisor's tentative budget didn't happen in time to be meaningful for voters. And it's coming too late for the weekly press to even inform the public of the content of the preliminary budget on which the board will hold a public hearing next week (assuming the board makes changes to the supervisor's tentative plan). Please remember to check our Web site (riverheadnewsreview.com) for a story on today's meeting.

Maybe the supervisor's budget is perfect and in need of no revision. Maybe Mr. Stark is all wet when he says if the Cardinale budget is corrected we're looking at a 30 percent tax hike. (I certainly hope so.) But the supervisor was slippery and the Town Board fell flat on its face. Board members should have insisted on public scrutiny of the tentative budget right from the beginning — and not waited until the 11th hour to ask that the budget be put on a work session agenda.

Surrounding towns have opened up their budget processes as the law requires. Riverhead — ironically, under the administration of a man who claims open government as his hallmark — has gone in the opposite direction.