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Reform Group Says Ethics Changes Not Enough

NYS Capitol building in Albany

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says he wants ethics reform as part of the budget or he’ll hold up the state’s spending plan, while legislators say they want to negotiate the issue separately. Government reform groups say the key issue is that the reforms be real. 

Cuomo is threatening to make the budget late over an ethics reform package that the governor is seeking. He repeated his demand this week at a business lunch in Rochester.

“This year a top priority is having ethics reform done in Albany,” Cuomo said. “Because at one point, enough is enough.”

Cuomo’s proposals come after the arrest of the former Assembly Speaker, Sheldon Silver, on charges he illegally gained millions of dollars in payments from two private law firms.   

Several other lawmakers have also been charged and convicted of fraudulently obtaining payments through outside employment.

Citizens Union, one of the longest running reform groups in New York, says Governor Cuomo is on the right track by demanding that state lawmakers fully disclose how they earn any outside income, and that there be a ban on receiving money from companies who have direct business before the state.

But the group’s Dick Dadey says the governor should not link the ethics measures to budget appropriations bills. And he says the changes don’t go far enough. He says the entire system of compensation for lawmakers has to change, if illegal activities are to cease.

“Half a loaf measures can no longer cut it,” Dadey said.

Senators and Assemblymembers earn a base salary of just under $80,000 a year. That’s a comfortable salary for many upstate regions, but that amount does not go as far in New York City and surrounding suburbs. Lawmakers have not had a pay raise in 16 years.  Citizen’s Union supports a cap on outside income of 25 percent of a legislator’s salary. A similar idea is also backed by Democrats in the State Senate as well as other reform groups.  But Dadey says realistically, lawmakers need to be paid more money in order for that to work fairly. He proposes that Cuomo and the legislature appoint a commission to examine lawmaker’s pay and with the power to impose a cap on outside income.

The group also recommends that the expense reimbursement system for lawmakers, known as per diem pay, be reformed. Currently, lawmakers are compensated for each day that they say they are in Albany, but they don’t have to provide any receipts to actually back up their claims. Dadey says lawmakers could be asked to provide a calendar showing that they actually attended a meeting or event associated with their job as a Senator or Assemblymember while they were at the Capitol.

“To prove that they actually were in Albany doing business ,” Dadey said. “And not just in Albany taking up space.”

Dadey admits that the changes to legislators' pay and any accompanying cap on outside income could not happen right away. Lawmakers can only raise the pay of future elected lawmakers, so the earliest they could receive a pay raise would be January of 2017.

But he says full disclosure could be implemented now, and the commission could be put in place.

Legislative leaders say they are confident that they will agree on an ethics package by the time the budget is due on March 31, but they have not offered details.  

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