Governor Kathy Hochul has given the state of New York around one billion dollars in a slush fund in this summer’s state budget, with no restrictions on what projects or groups she could spend the money on.
“Gov. Hochul gave herself nearly $1 billion for a slush fund in this summer’s state budget, with no restrictions on what projects or groups she could spend the money on. It allowed her to hand out cash with no review by the Legislature.
Critics claim she has used the enormous amount of taxpayers’ cash in an unethical bid to buy votes or control political groups in the forthcoming election against Republican Lee Zeldin.
The governor and her Democratic allies in the Legislature added the $920 million worth of outlays to the $220.5 billion fiscal plan in an 11th-hour move in April that government watchdogs warn is wide open to abuse.
‘These slush funds are totally unaccountable. It’s not how public dollars should be doled out’, senior policy adviser Rachael Fauss of Reinvent Albany said Friday.
Another nonpartisan nonprofit, the Citizens Budget Commission, said the cash ‘will go to projects and purposes that primarily will be identified behind closed doors’.
‘As such, they are ripe for political allocation rather than a distribution based on sound, holistic capital planning that addresses critical infrastructure needs’, the CBC wrote.
The group also noted that the $535 million poured into two of three ‘lump sum’ spending programs — the Long Island Investment Fund and the Local Community Assistance Program — can be spent ‘for essentially any purpose’ and ‘isn’t subject to any agreement with the Legislature’.
In recent weeks, Hochul announced two expenditures that squarely targeted the Long Island home base of Zeldin, an outgoing, four-term U.S. representative.
One provided $50 million in funding for a competition to ‘attract and grow companies in the life sciences, health technology, and medical device sectors’ on Long Island.
The other awarded a $10 million grant to the Northwell Health network’s Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research for 26 new, state-of-the-art laboratories in Manhasset.
Hochul touted both initiatives on the state’s official website, which also says that ‘the Long Island Investment Fund will focus on large-scale projects that will support and grow the regional economy, enhance communities, and have lasting impacts across the Long Island region’.
And on Sept. 27, Hochul was joined at a news conference about the Feinstein Institutes funding by state Sen. Anna Kaplan (D-Carle Place), who faces Republican Jack Martins, a former state senator, in a race that’s expected to be close due to local outrage over New York’s controversial bail-reform law.
‘Kathy Hochul hasn’t simply blurred the line between governing and campaigning — she’s completely erased it’, remarked state Senate Minority Leader Will Barclay (R-Fulton).
‘New York has the least transparent budget process imaginable and what we’re seeing now is a product of creating pools of money with no guidelines whatsoever’.
In addition to the ‘lump sum’ funding, the CBC identified six ‘individual purpose’ pork projects, including the controversial $600 million earmarked for a new stadium for Hochul’s hometown football team, the Buffalo Bills.
The governor’s husband, former Buffalo US Attorney Bill Hochul, is a top executive at the Delaware North hospitality and food service company that manages the scores of concession and retail outlets at the Bills’ Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park.
Another project with a direct tie to Hochul is the planned $20 million reconstruction of the Carrier Dome sports stadium at Syracuse University, her alma mater.
The planned Universal Hip-Hop Museum in the South Bronx and the planned Mohawk Harbor Events Center in Schenectady were awarded $11 million and $10 million in funding, respectively.
The New York Hall of Science in Corona, Queens, and Pace University’s Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts in Lower Manhattan will also get $10 million and $5 million, respectively, for upgrades.
In its analysis, the CBC said as much as $1.2 billion of the spending could be financed by bonds that would ‘consume’ the state’s ability to issue debt and potentially prevent it from financing other, ‘critical’ projects in the future”. -Zach Williams, Carl Campanile, and Bruce Golding, New York Post
Hochul's first-ever state budget included $1.6 billion to spread around politically crucial corners of the state, including $920 million which is earmarked for whatever she wants.
Hochul will be spending close to a billion dollars of borrowed money to buy political support despite the total budget already topping $220 billion.
In just over a year while in office, Hochul has raised at least $10 million more than her predecessor, Governor Andrew Cuomo, ever did for a single campaign.
In any event, a recent Marist Poll shows that U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) of Long Island is just eight points behind the Democratic incumbent Hochul — 52% to 44% — among New Yorkers who definitely plan to vote in the November 8th election.