Regulation of Member Items is Long Overdue

Member items, also known as legislative pork, have been the subject of much discussion in the New York State Legislature this year, and I have heard from my constituents about them as well. Currently, there is a lax system in place for legislators to distribute member item money throughout their legislative districts. Member items represent from $170-200 million in the general budget. They are given out at the discretion of the legislator, and often help support very worthy local or regional causes, organizations, etc.

But in the broader context, the member item system is rife with inequities and potentials for abuse. At the legislative level, some legislators may believe that if they vote a certain way on legislation, the leadership may be more inclined to favor them when divvying up member item dollars. There is no prescribed way to distribute these dollars among legislators, and recently some good government groups posted just how unfair the distribution of dollars was throughout the state (see the article on NYPIRG’s website at nypirg.org/GOODGOV/ memberItemLottery). Areas that receive larger pots of money now, since the majority in the Senate has swung to the democrats, were receiving very little before. Traditionally, the party in power gets the lion’s share of the monies and parses them out via the party leadership.

Assembly Members and State Senators are allowed to announce the amounts they grant to various community organizations right before elections. This means, essentially, that taxpayer dollars are being used to influence election outcomes.

Leaders may choose to add or reduce member item allocations around the state to help their party stay in power. When studying the reasons that incumbents are successful in retaining their seats, member items must be considered.

Furthermore, there have been multiple occasions in recent history where member item abuses have been reported. For example, money has been given to groups which have no fiscal oversight in place, and then been funneled back into the pockets of the sources of that funding, or their relatives.

As I mentioned, member items are discretionary funding. While there is no doubt that many legislators use them for good, in these tough times, with money in the state as tight as it is and with a $9.2 billion deficit looming, we must eliminate the member items line from the budget. There is no room for discretionary funding.

Generally, I believe that anything worthy of state funding (which many of these organizations are) should be itemized in the state budget.

If, however, the majority of state legislators continue to maintain the notion that they should distribute funding locally because they are in the best position to assess local needs, then the system must be changed to be equitable, transparent, and fair.

Sandy Galef represents New York State’s 90th Assembly District in Albany and is currently seeking reelection..