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It’s the Albany way.
A politician starts a nonprofit and then pumps taxpayer money into it, with the cash often landing in the pockets of friends or family at the charity.
State Sen. Shirley Huntley founded The Parent Workshop, and the state grant she steered to it led to her arrest last week.
The Queens Democrat was indicted after a probe by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, prompted by a Post exposé. She was charged with trying to cover up the alleged theft of $29,950 in state money that went to the organization. Huntley’s niece and an aide were also charged in the purported scheme to pocket the taxpayer cash.
Other state lawmakers with shady non-profits include:
Malcolm Smith
State Sen. Malcolm Smith and Rep. Gregory Meeks, each a Queens Democrat, were among those credited with founding the New Direction Local Development Corp. in 2001. Smith’s wife was on the initial board of directors.
Later that year, Smith began sending state member-item cash to the Queens group, an amount that eventually totaled more than $56,000. One $10,000 grant was to go toward the salary of a former Smith staffer who was the group’s executive director.
But the group had little accountability for how it spent its money. A separate fund it started in 2005 to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina gave out a small fraction of the more than $30,000 it raised, according to public documents. The rest of the money remains missing.
A New Orleans resident who was coordinating the distribution of the promised aid money to local victims said it never arrived.
Smith has maintained he had nothing to do with the operation of the charity and didn’t know what happened to the Katrina cash.
Federal prosecutors began probing the now-defunct non-profit after a 2010 Post exposé.
Vivian Cook
Assemblywoman Vivian Cook, who has represented Jamaica and surrounding areas since 1991, set up the Rockaway Boulevard Local Development Corp. in 1979.
The Queens Democrat lobbied the Port Authority for money for the nonprofit when the PA was planning to build the nearby AirTrain to Kennedy Airport. The agency agreed to provide $8 million to the nonprofit as part an effort to mitigate the impact of the AirTrain construction on local communities and by 2010 had paid out $2.5 million.
The LDC was supposed to build a business-resource center and in 2006 spent $560,500 to buy a vacant lot on Rockaway Boulevard. It remains an empty, weed-choked eyesore.
The nonprofit, which had at least two paid employees, also spent more than $250,000 on street sweeping along Rockaway Boulevard, although it farmed that work out to another nonprofit.
After The Post exposed the wasteful spending in 2010, the Port Authority opened an investigation and said it would no longer fund the organization, which has since shut its doors. The US Attorney’s Office also opened a probe.
Barbara Clark
Democratic Assemblywoman Barbara Clark helped found the Community Care Development Project in 1989, two years after taking office, and steered almost $500,000 in state money to it.
The group operated out of a storefront down the street from Clark’s office in Queens Village and offered similar services, such as helping people avoid bureaucratic obstacles.
What the group actually does, however, is a mystery. Most of the taxpayer money went to rent, salaries and office expenses. In 2010, when The Post visited its offices, there was just one employee sitting at a desk, unable to help with any questions.
The nonprofit shut its doors on Nov. 30, 2011, because it no longer received state funding, according to former director Shirley Alexander.