As proof that state lawmakers were wrapping up one of the most productive legislative sessions in memory, Governor Pataki and the majority leader of the Senate, Joseph Bruno, last week cited last-minute agreements to crack down on methamphetamine production, deny state funding for Viagra to sex offenders, and monitor more closely hundreds of apparently lawless public authorities. Invoking a favorite word, Mr. Pataki summed up this year’s legislative accomplishments as “historic.”

In the end, the list of successes was about the same length as the list of failures. Mr. Pataki failed in his last-minute push to raise the number of charter schools in the state; sex offenders would not be required to register with state authorities for life; and no agreement was reached on the number of casinos that will be allowed in the Catskills. Compromise is hard in a legislature that is divided between a Republican Senate and a Democratic Assembly, and further hobbled by a regional conflict between the largely downstate Democrats and upstate Republicans. “It’s very, very difficult to govern this state,” Mr. Bruno said.

Still, a closer look at this year’s legislative accomplishments suggests that at least one political player here is quietly accruing power. The chairman of the Assembly’s committee on authorities, Richard Brodsky, had urged greater oversight of public authorities for years. But he had to wait until the state comptroller, Alan Hevesi, released a report on the topic for lawmakers to act. In the same way, the district attorney of Westchester, Jeanine Pirro, raised the subsidized Viagra problem months ago. She had to wait for an audit by Mr. Hevesi before lawmakers acted on a ban.

And those are just the obvious examples of Mr. Hevesi’s heft. More significant is the role he played in a spate of last-minute lawmaking last week that took place with little public attention. As sole trustee of the state’s $120 billion public pension fund, Mr. Hevesi is one of the world’s most powerful investors. And he has not been reluctant to use that power in influencing corporate behavior. He recently scolded officials at a hip-hop radio station of which the pension fund owns shares, and he has withheld money for companies with subsidiaries in Northern Ireland on political principle.

In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Mr. Hevesi described his guiding investment principle on behalf of New York’s roughly 1 million retired or nearly retired employees as “to do well and do good at the same time.”

Mr. Hevesi will have more leverage in exercising that principle if Mr. Pataki signs a bill lawmakers quietly rushed through the Legislature in the final hours of the session on Friday. According to the bill, the portion of the pension fund assets over which Mr. Hevesi has discretion to invest in alternative assets will now increase to 25% from 15%. A June 13 article by the Manhattan Institute’s E.J. McMahon and Nicole Gelinas that first called attention to the proposal raised the possibility that the increased discretion could translate into increased risk for taxpayers instead of pensioners because state law mandates that guaranteed benefits can’t be reduced. A shortfall would have to be levied rather than withheld. The authors recommended a public debate on the issue before the end of session.

The bill’s Republican sponsor in the Senate, Joseph Robach, defended the proposal in a legislative memo to colleagues by arguing that current restrictions prevent Mr. Hevesi and future fiduciaries of the fund from maximizing returns on investment. By raising the percentage of assets that may be invested according to so-called prudent-investor standards, Mr. Robach wrote, the comptroller will be able to increase the allocation of assets in private equity and hedge funds. He argued that easing restrictions would improve returns and reduce risk. Mr. Robach sponsored the bill at the request of Mr. Hevesi.

That the bill won passage in the final hours of the session suggests that a last-minute compromise between Messrs. Hevesi and Pataki and the legislative leaders allowing the increased discretion was in the works. What would the governor have received in return? One possible answer emerged last week in the form of a bill involving the state insurance fund. The bill repeats the call for increasing Mr. Hevesi’s discretionary power but adds an unrelated provision allowing 10% of the New York Insurance Fund, which Mr. Pataki controls, to be invested in securities. Established to provide workers’ compensation coverage to state employees, the fund has $10 billion in assets.

A spokesman for Mr. Pataki said last night the second bill passed both houses of the Legislature Friday afternoon. A plausible scenario is that the Insurance Fund provision was added as a concession to Mr. Pataki in exchange for his support of increased power for Mr. Hevesi. But the spokesman, Kevin Quinn, denied this. “We were not really party to those negotiations,” he said. “So we’re going to wait to review that bill.” It’s not the sort of thing that anyone up here in Albany is holding a press conference about, though the consequences for taxpayers may be “historic” in their own way.