Letters to the Editor

'How To Reform the Council'

City Council members De Blasio, Brewer, and Palma propose to reform the City Council's budget practices by, among other things, mandating that "all organizations that received significant ... City Council funding would undergo a rigorous audit to ensure that funds are being spent according to their designated purpose" [Oped, "How To Reform the Council," May 7, 2008].

The criteria for what constitutes sufficiently significant funding to trigger the audit requirement — receiving $10,000 or funds that comprise more than one-half of a year's budget — would mean that an enormous number of comprehensive audits of far-flung organizations would need to be conducted.

Let us state plainly what went unsaid in the article. The three writers propose that, in order to preserve individual council members' ability to hand out pork to their supporters, friends, and family members, taxpayers fund either an entirely new agency charged with conducting the above-mentioned audits, or a sizeable (to put it mildly) addition to the staff of the New York City Comptroller.

One of these alternatives would be necessary, as there is, at present, no agency capable of conducting the proposed audits. It seems beyond all hoping that one or more members of the City Council will propose a truly bold solution to the slush fund scandal that has embroiled their speaker: namely, an end to the practice of allowing individual council members to allocate funds to favored organizations almost entirely without question or review.

While the amount of funding that goes into these "member items" is relatively small in comparison to the total annual city budget, the cost of policing these funding grants would, over time, add significantly to the city's payroll, healthcare, and pension obligations.

This seems an illogical burden for taxpayers to bear just so that a few dozen local elected officials with little other power or authority can continue to act as publicly funded philanthropists.

It would be far bolder of our City Council to pass legislation eliminating the practice. If such action is not to be, I, for one, would rather that the monies continue to be allocated without review or "rigorous" follow-up audits.

At least then the handing out of pork for incumbency protection would not cost any more than it already does. To sink yet more tax dollars into this scheme would be far more offensive to me, and, I'm sure, to many other New Yorkers, than just allowing the money to be appropriated — or misappropriated — without review.

ROBERT RENZULLI

New York, N.Y.