Mayor Gives $20M in Discretionary Funding

A City Council member endorsed by the mayor in the Democratic Senate primary, Simcha Felder, pulled in more money from the mayor for pet projects over the last six years than any other elected official.Mr. Felder, who represents parts of Brooklyn, collected $5.66 million in discretionary funding from the mayor, according to a memo released by City Hall yesterday.Over the past six years, Mr. Bloomberg has doled out about $20 million to council members for their member items, spending the most money in fiscal year 2006, when he gave out $5.6 million. That was the year Mr. Bloomberg was running for re-election.For the first time, the mayor has released a list of the council members that received discretionary money from him, and the local organizations where the funding ultimately landed, places such as the Glendale Senior Center, Council of Jewish Organizations of Flatbush, and Brooklyn Housing and Family Services, among many others.The council’s Republican members also were regular recipients of city funds for their chosen organizations and programs. Mr. Bloomberg ran for mayor as a Republican, but dropped his party affiliation last summer to become an independent.A former council member of Staten Island who is now a state senator, Andrew Lanza, collected $1.68 million from the mayor’s discretionary funding pot over five years. The minority leader of the council, James Oddo, pulled in $1.372 million over six years, and a former Republican council member, Dennis Gallagher, collected $637,500 over three years.The mayor disclosed in May that he had been giving money to council members through a process somewhat similar to the one used on the other side of City Hall, in which the speaker of the council gives away millions of dollars in discretionary funding each year for members to funnel to their favored organizations.The distribution of discretionary funds by the speaker came under scrutiny earlier this year after it was disclosed that the council had been hiding millions of dollars behind fictitious groups in the budget to create a slush fund for the speaker. The funds were parceled out to council members for member items.Two council aides were indicted on embezzlement charges for allegedly stealing money from a local group that received some funding from the speaker’s slush fund.The mayor is not giving out any discretionary funds this year because of the city’s tight budget, an aide said. On Tuesday, the mayor called for all city agencies to cut their budgets over two years, for a projected savings of $1.5 billion.

Mayor Gives $20M in Discretionary Funding

Mayor Gives $20M in Discretionary Funding

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