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[NY Times] Uncovering the Perks of Albany’s Fallen G.O.P.

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by Nolen, Feb 11, 2009.

  1. Nolen

    Nolen Contributing Member

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    I apologize for posting without much comment, but wow:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/nyregion/12repubs.html?hp


    ALBANY — Democrats took control of the State Senate last month after more than four decades of Republican rule, then set out to determine how the Senate’s own budget of nearly $100 million and its attendant perks were being distributed.

    They recently realized there are some 75 employees working at the Senate’s own printing plant, a plain brick building on the outskirts of Albany. On Long Island, they found a small television studio, which had been set up — all with public money, with two press aides on hand to help operate it — for the exclusive use of Republican senators to record cable TV shows.

    Democrats also came across what they are calling the “Brunomobile,” a $50,000 specially outfitted GMC van, with six leather captain’s chairs (some swiveling), a navigation system, rearview camera and meeting table. Joseph L. Bruno, the former Senate majority leader who was recently indicted on corruption charges, traveled in the van after his use of state helicopters sparked a feud with the Spitzer administration.

    Then there are the parking spots, always at a premium near the Capitol. Democrats had been given roughly one spot per senator — there were 30 Democrats last year — and guessed there were perhaps double or even triple that controlled by the majority. Instead, they have learned, there are more than 800.

    And Democratic leaders must determine what to do about 45 workers toiling away in a building close to the Capitol who appear to have been engaged in quasi-political research for the Republicans.

    “Every time we nail something down, we uncover another rock and there’s another 30 people there — it’s all over the state,”
    said Angelo J. Aponte, who as the new secretary of the Senate is the top aide to Malcolm A. Smith, the Queens Democrat who became majority leader last month.

    Mr. Aponte said the lack of cooperation from Republicans — and their decades-long absence of transparency — has left him poring over payroll records, trying to piece together the money trail. He said an audit would be conducted, either by the state comptroller or by an outside accounting firm.

    Republicans have long defended their spending as the prerogative of the majority party, and also characterize as absurd the claim that they have been uncooperative — a smokescreen to hide that Democrats are now giving Republicans fewer resources than Democrats had received when they were in the minority. Indeed, Mr. Smith, while increasing the allotment for individual senators, is cutting the minority’s central staff budget to about $3 million from $7 million, after promising to put the minority party on more equal footing.

    “That effectively neuters our ability to function as an opposition,” said Dean G. Skelos, a Long Island Republican and the new minority leader. Still, many in the capital are tittering at the howls of anguish from the Republicans, who for so long gleefully starved the Democrats, and were known for paying their top staffers even more than the governor’s $179,000 salary.


    Tensions between incoming and outgoing legislative majorities are not unusual. But the questions of how Senate Republicans spent public money are emerging at a time when the state is financially pressed, and the public is being asked to pay hundreds of millions of dollars more in taxes.

    Mr. Smith, who says he will also reduce his own party’s staffing budget, has committed to shaving the Senate’s overall budget by 8 percent, mostly by cutting staff. The Democrats cannot say how many jobs they will eliminate, because they really do not know how many employees there are. Mr. Smith said he believed there were 1,200 to 1,500 people on the Senate payroll, but is not sure.

    “We don’t even know where everybody is,” he said.

    The transition has allowed for the first real glimpse inside the sprawling patronage machine built by Senate Republicans and operated with a veil of secrecy that sometimes left even rank-and-file G.O.P. members in the dark.

    Senator Tom Libous, an 11-term Republican from Binghamton, said even he had not known there was a television studio on Long Island.

    “You serious?” he said. “O.K. I don’t have one in Binghamton.”

    John McArdle, a spokesman for Mr. Skelos, said calling it a television studio was an overstatement. Yes, there were cameras, lights and a place to record television segments — usually for cable-access programs — he conceded, but only in a corner of a special regional press office at a state building in Hauppauge.

    Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for Senator Craig M. Johnson — who had been the lone Long Island Democrat until November’s election — said he had heard “vague rumors” about the existence of the facility. He guffawed when asked if Mr. Johnson had ever been invited by the Republicans to use it.

    “No,” Mr. Azzopardi said, “I don’t believe they ever gave us the password that shut down the waterfall to enter the cave leading into the studio.”


    Republicans say they provided Democrats with detailed employment lists. Democrats insist that never happened, and are assembling their own.

    During an interview, Mr. Smith turned to an aide and asked: “What’s that place off campus? Some building we haven’t even been to yet. It has like 200 people there and we didn’t even know it existed.”

    He was referring to the Senate’s printing plant, about seven miles from the Capitol.

    Bills, mailings and various brochures were printed there, with Republicans receiving premium service. For instance, the constituent newsletters sent to Republican districts were printed in multiple colors, while those printed for Democratic districts were printed in black and white, with one color. Democratic leaders say the lease for the plant currently costs the state $632,460 per year, and that the payroll appears to be about $2.7 million.


    Workers there, many of whom have worked at the facility for much of their professional lives, are wondering about their job security.

    “It’s not like it doesn’t go through people’s minds,” said Fred Beck, the good-natured assistant director of mail and printing services for the Senate, during a tour of the plant. He showed a reporter three jumbo Xerox machines that can each crank out 180 copies per minute, as well as thick coils of paper and stacks of Senate mailers.

    Are all the employees here Republicans? Mr. Beck was asked.

    “Yeah, I believe so,” he said. “It’s not like I go around and ask.”

    previously reported by The New York PostAs the spending questions pile up, Republicans are grappling with the more general adjustment to being in the minority. Perhaps the ultimate indignity came last week, when Democrats refused to let a Republican senator interrupt a Democrat during an oration on the Senate floor, a courtesy typically afforded to a fellow senator.

    “In 17 years, I’ve never refused to yield to any member’s questions,” said Senator Michael F. Nozzolio, an upstate Republican, after he was denied a chance to speak.

    Senator Carl Kruger, a Brooklyn Democrat, rhetorically swatted Mr. Nozzolio aside, saying simply, “I’m not finished.”
     
  2. BetterThanEver

    BetterThanEver Contributing Member

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    Government waste. 75 employees to print newsletters? I usually toss the newsletters in the trash. What a waste of tax dollars. No wonder, New Yorkers get taxed so much more than Texans.
     
  3. A_3PO

    A_3PO Member

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    Disgusting.
     
  4. SamFisher

    SamFisher Contributing Member

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    I just read this and was going to post it. wow.
     
  5. basso

    basso Contributing Member
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    [​IMG]

    wow indeed.
     
  6. FranchiseBlade

    FranchiseBlade Contributing Member
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    What a stellar defense! That really helps clarify the issue at hand.
     
  7. LScolaDominates

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    Shouldn't all of this have been public information from the start? Why did it take a change in party control over the body for this to come out?
     
  8. DonnyMost

    DonnyMost not wrong
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    Absolute power, etc etc
     
  9. A_3PO

    A_3PO Member

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    That's all he had. The same old knee-jerk stuff that tries to change the subject. When it comes to defending themselves and admitting failure, changing the subject has been the GOP battle plan for the last who-knows-how-many years.
     
  10. SamFisher

    SamFisher Contributing Member

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    It reminded me of Yao on Boozer.
     

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