The speaker of the New York City Council, Gifford Miller, fessed up yesterday that, rather than the $37,000 his spokesman had claimed, it cost the city taxpayers $1.6 million to print and mail political brochures to voters in June. The direct-mail pieces were intended to make Mr. Miller and the City Council members look good in advance of the municipal election, but they are instead making them look like poor stewards of the money the taxpayers have entrusted them with.

Under Mr. Miller’s leadership, the City Council has voted to raise taxes, claiming important services couldn’t be paid for without the tax increases. Instead of important services, though, Mr. Miller and his council colleagues have taken the tax money and used it for self-promotion.

The printing job, our Jill Gardiner reports today, was split into 150 “jobs” and among five printers. That avoided the competitive bidding requirements that otherwise would have applied for city work costing more than $5,000. It also turns out that one of the printers who was awarded the no-bid work for the city government has also been used by Mr. Miller to do campaign printing.

Mr. Miller has been making a fuss lately in his fight with Mayor Bloomberg over the city’s solid waste plan. Printing and mailing 5.8 million pieces of political mail at taxpayer expense in an election year contributes more to the trash problem in the city than any misstep by Mr. Bloomberg could. To put it in context, there only are about 3.7 million registered voters in the city.

It’s long past time for Mr. Miller to do the right thing here, which would be to apologize for wasting the taxpayer money and for avoiding the bidding rules – and then to reimburse the city treasury for the cost of the mailings.