Skoufis Seeks to Ban Anonymous Legislative Grants

Bill is in response to Kiryas Joelโ€™s anonymous $2 million award

PRESS RELEASE

Newly elected state Senator James Skoufis (D-Hudson Valley) announced he will soon introduce legislation to prohibit anonymous legislative grants, calling the initiative a matter of accountability and public disclosure. Typically, every legislative grant is submitted by and attributed to a specific senator, but in 2018, there was one noticeable exception: an anonymous $2 million award for the Village of Kiryas Joel.

โ€œGrants are usually trumpeted by state legislators yet, just last year, everyone in the Senate ran for the hills when asked who was responsible for Kiryas Joelโ€™s anonymous $2 million grant,โ€ said Skoufis. โ€œAs chairman of the Senateโ€™s investigations committee, Iโ€™m determined to fumigate Albany of its smoke and mirrors, and if someone isnโ€™t willing to put their name on a legislative grant, that grant should be stopped in its tracks.โ€

In February 2018, the Times Herald-Record reported that of all the legislative grants itemized in a 1,406-page state Senate document, the only award without a specific sponsor was the anonymous $2 million award for Kiryas Joel.

โ€œThese grants are paid for with our tax dollars and we deserve to know which legislators are securing them and why,โ€ explained County Legislator Peter Tuohy (R-Monroe). โ€œI share Senator Skoufisโ€™ desire to hold the process more accountable and transparent and look forward to working with him to pass this important bill.โ€

โ€œMy new legislation is about ending special treatment and flipping over the rugs to see whatโ€™s been swept under them all these years,โ€ said Skoufis. โ€œThereโ€™s a new sheriff in town and itโ€™s long past time every community is made to play by the same set of rules.

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