More on dysfunctional New York state government

The blogger NYCO reports on a New York Times article from last week about the problems of New York state's 640 public authorities.

NYCO writes: Six hundred and forty. The mind boggles. None of their boards are elected. None of them are accountable to the public. And I doubt the average New Yorker can name more than one or two of these authorities - e.g. Port Authority, New York Racing Association, Thruway Authority. (And read the part about the billions in debt incurred by these authorities

It cited the Times article for an explanation as to why authorities are so prevelant. [T]he authorities have their roots in the state's Constitutional Convention of 1846, when New York was on the brink of bankruptcy and its voters decided that the state should not be allowed to borrow money without a public referendum. "Years later,'' the report says, "as the state's fiscal needs expanded, the public authority concept began to develop as a mechanism to avoid the public referendum requirement.''

NYCO opines: The mind of the average New Yorker cannot get itself around such massive corruption and poor management; when I engaged my mom in conversation about it recently, she seemed puzzled that anyone should be angry that the state currently has no budget. "But that's the way it always is, they never have a budget," she said. Albany has her trained good. When I explained to her that, no, that's not the way it always is, that state legislatures are expected to pass budgets as a bare minimum of their duties, that no other state has the atrocious history of New York in this area, that the lack of a budget affects her directly, and that this is not, as she thinks, normal... I almost saw a glimmer of light her in her eyes. Almost. Not quite.

On a related note, North Country Public Radio noted that a fiscal watchdog group is asking state lawmakers to take a pledge. The Citizens Budget Commission wants Senators and Assembly members to promise that they will actually read the state budget before it is passed this year.

Only in Albany would it be considered revolutionary to actually take time to know what they were voting on. Assuming they ever vote on it.