For Legislators, Hotels and Meals are on the Taxpayer's Dime

The average New Yorker makes a little less than $40,000 a year. Most pay for their gas and lunch out of those wages.

State lawmakers earn a base salary of $79,500 for what is, ostensibly, a part-time job. Many also receive stipends for leadership posts, raising their pay to the six-figure stratosphere.

And when legislators descend on Albany to vote on bills - three or four days a week for nine months - taxpayers are on the hook for thousands of dollars in travel expenses.

First is a 50-cent-per-mile reimbursement for gas or, if a lawmaker takes a plane or train to Albany, a complete reimbursement for the ticket.

Then there's per diems. For each day a lawmaker is in Albany, he or she receives $110 for an overnight stay and $61 for meals. The rates are set according to federal guidelines that regulate spending by members of Congress.

In flush times, and when state budgets are passed on or near their April 1 deadline, there's little more than grumbling from gadflies and good-government groups about the spending. But this year the budget was passed four months late and the state is reeling from cuts to education and social services to close a $9 billion deficit.

Add to that a particularly active election year, with every seat in the Legislature and all statewide offices up for grabs this fall, and you have yet another layer to the onion of dysfunction that is Albany.

The lawmakers who represent Port Chester and the surrounding area – Assemblyman George Latimer and Sen. Suzi Oppenheimer – both told Patch they would welcome reform to the per diem system.

Latimer, who earns $79,500 a year, has spent just over $100,000 on travel expenses since he took office in 2005, according to an analysis by the Albany bureau of Gannett News Service.

The assemblyman, who took a voluntary three-percent pay cut and axed two positions in his office this year, said that he would have no problem being held more accountable for the spending.

"I keep all my receipts and I'd be happy to show records, to show a hotel bill," he said, adding that he would not oppose an effort to cut the amount of money given to legislators.

He also pointed out that lawmakers must sign an agreement declaring that the per diem money is being spent only on travel expenses. If they pocketed the money, "they would be perjuring themselves."

Oppenheimer, who makes $97,500 a year as the head of the Senate's Education Committee, has spent about $86,000 on travel over the last decade, according to Gannett. Through a spokeswoman, the senator said she would like to see the current system replaced with a reimbursement program.

"The reform that I support is to base reimbursement on actual expenses,
subject to a daily cap, rather than the per diem system in place now," Oppenheimer said.

"This would remove any question of accountability and lower the total cost of reimbursement to taxpayers."

Oppenheimer's Republican opponent in this fall's election, Bob Cohen, has criticized the legislature's spending throughout his campaign.

"In this economy – or in any economy, for that matter – taxpayers should not be subject to this type of flagrant waste of their hard earned dollars," Cohen said after the legislature trooped to Albany on July 28 for a special session that lasted 12 minutes. No bills were taken up, and lawmakers collected their usual travel money.

Latimer blamed the July 28 debacle on Gov. David Paterson, who he said "called the Legislature into session just to prove a point."

Paterson was locked in a stalemate with legislative leaders over how best to close the budget gap. July 28 also happened to be the day when an ethics panel issued a report that said Paterson acted inappropriately when he contacted a woman who accused one of the his top aides of domestic violence.

Latimer also suggested that lawmakers could save taxpayer money by making the session shorter.

Cohen spokesman Josh Hills said that the candidate believes there should be greater transparency in the per diem system.

"Not only should they be required to provide receipts for out of pocket expenses such as hotel bills, but also detailed explanations as to what business they are conducting on the taxpayers tab," Hills said.

"Lawmakers should also forgo their per diem after the [April 1] budget deadline passes."

No bills have been introduced in recent years that would significantly overhaul the per diem system. One bill that died this year would have frozen the per diem rate for two years - it usually goes up annually with inflation - and another would have prohibited lawmakers with outside income from taking the per diem.