The New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethicsreleased the top spending lobbyists in an effort to influence state government during the 2015 legislative session, finding that education and real estate groups were the biggest spenders.
The top spenders thus far in 2015 correlate with the top issues this year: fights over the future of public education and New York City’s rent regulations.
Charter school advocates and those seeking an education tax credit that would allow people to donate up to a million dollars tax free to send underprivileged children to private schools, among other things , together spent over $7.5 million. That’s more than the normally top spending teachers union, which reports spending $3.8 million on lobbying.
In a statement, Bob Bellafiore, spokesman for the No. 1 spending Coalition for Opportunity -- which advocates for the education tax credit -- that his group is just leveling a playing field that he said has been “dominated by one side of the education argument for decades."
During March of 2015, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and lawmakers debated a controversial new teacher evaluation system that relies more heavily on standardized tests. That led to numerous protests by teachers in addition to lobbying.
“The governor has no respect for public education!’” shouted New York State United Teachers Vice President Andy Pallotta at the Capitol in March.
Charter schools held their own counter rally, attended by Cuomo’s Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul.
“I’m here to tell you it is time for change!” said Hochul to cheers.
In the end, neither side got all they wanted out of the session. Cuomo had sought the addition of 100 more charter schools, but he and the pro-charter groups saw only a handful of new schools approved.
The new teacher evaluation system was approved as part of the state budget, although the New York State Education Department is offering schools a one year delay in it’s implementation. And the education tax credit did not win approval in the legislature after a majority of Democrats in the Assembly opposed it. Instead, Catholic schools, who were part of the lobbying effort, received $250 million from the state, an amount that they said they were already owed.
The ethics commission also lists construction labor unions and real estate developers. New York City’s rent regulations and a related affordable housing provision were the subject of debate in the second half of the 2015 session. In the end, new rent rules were approved, but lawmakers punted on renewing a program, known as 421a, that gives tax breaks for developers who build affordable housing. The deal was also hampered by corruption scandals in Albany, including the arrest of the two legislative leaders. Both of their cases center on donations by a key real estate management company. Cuomo acknowledged the dilemma in June.
“If 421a helps the real estate industry, you’ll say that’s because the real estate industry are big donors,” Cuomo said at the time. “If it helps labor, they’ll say it helps labor. So, it’s that kind of complicated issue.”
In the end, Cuomo and lawmakers decided to extend the affordable housing program for just six months, and let the unions and the real estate industry work out a new deal, that addresses the issue of paying prevailing wages, by late December.
