With a current-year short fall approaching $4 billion, New York state’s finances are running on fumes. Yet the Legislature can’t even control its own spending.
Asking these lawmakers to pass a deficit-reduction plan is like asking someone who’s morbidly obese to recommend a diet.
Employing more than 2,700 people, New York’s Legislature has a larger staff than every other state but one (Pennsylvania). Florida, with nearly the same population, has a legislative staff of 1,570. Even California, twice New York’s size, has 650 fewer people on its Legislature’s payroll.
Gov. Paterson has directed state agencies to slash spending by 10 percent — but the Legislature, which sets its own budgets, doesn’t feel obliged to follow suit. In the first two fiscal quarters, the Senate and Assembly have nudged up their spending over last year, according to state data. And the Senate employs 67 more people than it did in August, according to its latest payroll report.
Just how bloated is our $200 million-a-year Legislature? Its officials will tell you that it has grown at a much slower rate than state spending growth over the last decade. But consider this:
* The Assembly Ways and Means Committee employs more than 100 people alone. Its personnel budget is more than $5 million a year. In comparison, the Ways and Means Committee for the US House of Representatives spends $8 million on salary.
And this is the same Assembly staff that until last year couldn’t even estimate the cost of pension bills without the help of a union-paid consultant.
* While the Legislature re- draws district maps once a decade, it spends $1 million every year on a “joint task force on reapportionment,” which employs 17 people, some of whom make more than $100,000 a year. The task force Web site shows no activity since 2002. (An Assembly spokesman says the unit researches and organizes a “voluminous” amount of data related to population, demographics and election results that are submitted to the Census and the federal Justice Department.)
* The Legislature has an intern and fellowship budget of about $1 million a year.
* The Legislature spends $1 million a year on central-staff photography units, which snap pictures of the lawmakers debating bills or hosting visitors. Packages of photos (doubles, of courses) are delivered to lawmakers on a weekly basis during session periods. “They send them to you even if you don’t request them,” says an assemblyman.
* The Assembly pays $90,000 a year to the director of a “tax studies program” — which, given the $7 billion in tax and fee hikes approved this year, doesn’t apparently research ways to lower taxes.
* At a cost of $1 million to $2 million a year, the Assembly and the Senate majority and the Assembly minority conferences pay for separate TV and radio studios. Paid “anchors” and “reporters” conduct interviews with lawmakers airing on cable access. “Often they’re told, ‘Here are the questions I want you to ask me,’ ” says a lawmaker.
* The communications and editorial-services units employ dozens of people who write and produce newsletters and press releases. “It’s very staff-heavy. We could easily survive with half the number,” says a Democratic assemblyman. Often, says the lawmaker, the same people use their accrued overtime to work on campaigns. “On both sides, it’s the marginal protection office,” says the lawmaker — in other words, the whole point is to help incumbents keep their jobs.
Naturally, the one area where the Legislature appears to show restraint is its legislative ethics commission — which charges taxpayers the bargain rate of $160,000 a year.
An Assembly spokesman assures that its chamber is scaling back. “We reduced Assembly spending last year, and we will do so again this year,” says the official. Yet state data show that the Assembly actually increased spending by $2.5 million last year, so it’s not entirely clear what those cutbacks entail. “That’s not necessarily contradictory,” says the spokesman.
That attitude infuriates taxpayers, who are repeatedly lectured in Albany about the need to “share the burden.” And it makes it all the more difficult to inflict any pain on labor unions and other interest groups.
But until the Legislature reins in its culture of excess, it’s only fair for New Yorkers to demand: You first.
jacob.gershman@gmail.com