The state comptroller, Alan Hevesi, has some regrets. “I was wrong,” Mr. Hevesi told reporters on Tuesday. “I didn’t understand at the time what the consequences were.” In 1990, Mr. Hevesi was an assemblyman from Queens and voted for Governor Cuomo’s scheme to “sell” Attica state prison to the Urban Development Corporation, a state agency. The state, in the guise of the UDC, paid itself $200 million with funds raised by a bond issue. The money went to pay operating expenses for the 1990-91 fiscal year. It was a transparent fiscal gimmick for Mr. Cuomo to balance the state budget that year, the sort of irresponsible “backdoor borrowing” that helped Governor Pataki oust Mr. Cuomo four years later.

But Mr. Hevesi assumes no responsibility for what he regards as the Pataki administration’s failure to redress the Attica fiasco. Mr. Pataki did refinance the Attica debt in 1995, but his administration made only a small payment on the principal in 1996 – and no payments at all from 1997 to 1999, even though those years each saw large state surpluses. To date, New Yorkers have paid $242 million in debt service on the Attica debt, and the state still owes $323 million in principal and interest. So the $200 million that balanced Mr. Cuomo’s 1990 budget will have cost New York at least $565 million by the time it’s paid off in 2020.

The Attica sale remains symbolic of the state’s irresponsible debt practices, according to Mr. Hevesi. The comptroller released a 115-page report, “New York State’s Debt Policy: A Need for Reform,” on Tuesday detailing the ways in which the state lives beyond its means. New York’s outstanding debt grew to $45.4 billion in 2004 from $14.4 billion in 1990. That’s $2,420 of debt for each New Yorker, compared to the national average of $944 per person. New York ranks second only to the much more populous state of California in total debt outstanding.

“Properly used, debt plays an essential role in government. It provides reserves to build schools, hospitals, highways, and mass transit and it creates jobs,” said Mr. Hevesi. “Misused, debt creates a burden that reduces government’s ability to respond to vital needs and transfers costs we should pay now to our children and grandchildren.” What’s especially destructive is that New York has increasingly used debt to pay for operating expenses. “The practice of borrowing for initiatives that provide no capital asset to the State is not only wasteful, it has the unintended consequence of chewing up debt capacity that would be better reserved for real capital needs,” reads the report.

New York passed legislation, the Debt Reform Act of 2000, to redress the abuse of state debt. The act sensibly prohibited borrowing for operating expenses. Since the law was passed, Mr. Hevesi found, New York has nevertheless incurred $7.7 billion in debt to pay for operating expenses. That’s 16% of the state’s outstanding debt – and none of it bought any capital improvements. The Debt Reform Act also ostensibly capped the state’s outstanding debt at 4% of personal income. Since the law, however, the state debt increased to 6.5% from 6% of personal income. The 2000 law only applied to new, future debt rather than the $35 billion debt that existed at the time.

And, even with Mr. Cuomo’s departure, backdoor borrowing continues apace. Under New York’s constitution, all general obligation borrowing must be approved by voters. Twenty years ago, voter-approved borrowing accounted for 40% of the state’s debt. Today, the voters approve about 8% of state borrowing. Mr. Hevesi wants to close the loopholes in the 2000 reform by constitutionally defining state funded debt to include all state obligations. He wants to limit all outstanding debt to 5% of personal income. He wants to create an independent debt management board to provide oversight and monitoring over all borrowing in Albany. And he wants to give taxpayers more control, by requiring that voters approve all annual debt issuances exceeding $1 billion.

“For too long, we have used debt to permit unsustainable levels of government spending,” Mr. Hevesi said. Perhaps if we asked New Yorkers themselves whether they considered it sensible to still be paying for Mr. Cuomo’s 1990-91 budget in 2005, the state might avoid the sort of fiscal trickery that seems endemic to Albany politicians. We’d like to think that Mr. Hevesi’s report will get them to pay attention.