Earlier this year, Governor Pataki vetoed funding for libraries and stymied an override attempt in the Assembly. Then, the Governor used discretionary funding to restore the cuts in Republican Assembly districts. Dryden is in a Democratic Assembly district, so the Governor did us no such favors.
It took a little while, but with the help of Assemblywoman Lifton's office, I managed to track down what that veto override cost local libraries:
On the other side of the coin, Senator Seward announced special grants for the Tompkins County, Dryden, and Groton libraries - $40,000 to the Tompkins County Public Library for catalog access computers, and $1000 each to Dryden and Groton for operations.
I'd really like to think there's some rational process behind Albany's horse-trading, but once again I'm left wondering if it's time to shut down the state capitol and start over. It would probably take a while for the patronage system to sort itself out again. In the meantime, we might have a system that isn't all about handing out favors while pretending to favor fiscal discipline.
Posted by simon at December 31, 2004 2:18 PM in politics (state)