Monday will be the first day of the state Senate’s 2013 legislative session — but senators were already hard at work this week tackling what they apparently consider one of New York’s most pressing issues: how to divvy up the annual taxpayer-paid pork.
Some priorities, huh? And get this: At the moment, there isn’t even any pork to divvy.
That’s right: Then-Gov. David Paterson removed the Legislature’s “member items” from the budget three years ago — and so far (mercifully) they haven’t returned.
No matter. The senators want to be prepared — just in case . . .
Thus, they made sure that among their first orders of business this week was to hammer out an agreement on how any hypothetical booty would be split.
According to new Senate rules — released in the middle of the night Tuesday — the majority coalition would be entitled to precisely 71 percent of any pork money that might materialize; the minority Democrats would get the remaining 29 percent.
Details can be found tucked deep inside the Senate rulebook on Page 23, in a reference to allocations for “community projects” — a k a “member items,” or pork.
It’s no surprise, of course, that lawmakers consider this issue critical: The cash is used as taxpayer-funded bribes, handed out to local groups to buy friends and votes.
While such perversity is technically legal — and, until three years ago, funded to the tune of $200 million a year — lawmakers have managed to find ways to use it for illegal purposes as well.
The names of ex-pols like Hiram Monserrate, Carl Kruger and Pedro Espada — all of whom were convicted of diverting taxpayer funds for their own benefit — leap to mind.
And just this week, ex-City Councilman Larry Seabrook drew a five-year sentence for similar hanky-panky at the local level.
“I wouldn’t read that much into” the new rules, says Scott Reif, an aide to GOP Sen. Majority Leader Dean Skelos.
Actually, he claims, they’re “not new” but merely a continuation of what always goes on the books.
As if that makes it more palatable.
But New Yorkers know all too well what’s most important to piggy pols.
It isn’t safeguarding taxpayer money.