The Syracuse Post-Standard continues its series on the slush funds of the governor, Senate, and Assembly by looking at the "give and take" of political contributions and money rolling out of Albany. Our State Senator Seward gets mentioned for steering $100,000 to a museum that's building a $200,000 replica of Governor Pataki's grandmother's Irish cottage.
One other piece of this story that I forgot to mention yesterday was a per-capita breakdown of where these funds go. Tompkins County received $313.42 per person. Neighboring Schuyler got $264.84 per person, Chemung got $61.11, Seneca got $49.49, Cortland got $15.84, Cayuga got $10.37, and Tioga got nothing. Tompkins County's total was $30,245,000, and its per-capita take was second only to Albany County, which got $837.04 per person.
While it's nice that the state is taking such an interest in Tompkins County, it might be better if they could do it within the bounds of more traditional accounting. The Post-Standard will have a complete list of 1720 projects tomorrow, so more details are on the way.
Posted by simon at October 18, 2004 7:10 PM in politics (state) , public finance