New York, NY – The New York City Council is expected today to approve nearly $50 million in so-called “member items”—or “pork,” according to critics—as part of the $63 billion city budget for the fiscal year beginning Thursday.
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The Council will keep the “pork budget” steady but ramped up other discretionary spending to make up for Mayor Bloomberg’s cuts.
The council’s discretionary funding has been the subject of intense scrutiny in recent years. In February, council member Larry Seabrook, a Bronx Democrat, was accused in a 13-count indictment of, among other things, using discretionary funds to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars to family members.
Mr. Seabrook has pleaded not guilty and remains an active voting member of the council as he awaits trial on federal corruption charges. Records released late Monday show his name attached to more than $360,000 in discretionary funding.
Eight of the items attached to him—including a $50,000 allocation to Unity Neighborhood Center Inc. for an after-school program and a $15,000 allocation to Theatre International Inc.—are pending final approval from the council’s review process. Neither Mr. Seabrook nor an aide returned a request for comment.
The council’s discretionary spending for the upcoming fiscal year, released late last night, is slightly higher than last year, jumping to $49.93 million from $49.88 million, an aide said. Council members traditionally defended the recipients of this funding—a variety of community groups—as deserving.
The pork budget includes smaller grants from individual Council members to hundreds of nonprofit groups around the city for social services and neighborhood groups. Favored Council members and their causes typically make out well from the discretionary grants.
At a time where the average NYC commuter is having their trains and buses cut right and left, it is outrageous that the City Council has this “pork”.
50 million out of 63 Billion is a joke. Most of this money are in he form of grants to community groups that do significant things for a community.
We should be focusing on he billions that are wasted. They do this to create a diversion. This money is less than 5$ per New Yorker, not something I’d lose sleep over.
We should be focusing on govt payrolls. The public sector is getting paid significantly more than the private sector and work a lot less. We need to break the public employee unions and make city employees accountable and productive.
what is the website to see how mcuh pork my councilman porked for his interests?
It’s so sad that the people who lost the election are still angry at Greenfield. What they don’t tell you is that the REASON he won is because he promised to help EVERYONE instead of a few. Thanks to Greenfield 2,200 children have Priority 7 vouchers. That’s is what he used all his political power for. Also, according to an askan I just spoke to, dozens of groups in our community got funding through Greenfield these include Masbia, Tomche Shabbos, Ohel and other REAL oranizations. So thank you R’ Duvid, for once again looking out for ALL of us, rather than a few of the “powerbrokers.”