ALBANY — While state lawmakers give taxpayer money to anti-gun organizations in the new budget, they also give grants to gun and hunting clubs.

Then there is $2,000 for nut allergy awareness, $100,000 for a soccer hall of fame and $10,000 for a boxing hall of fame, not to mention $5,000 for a roller hockey club in Lynbrook, on Long Island, and much more for Little League and Pop Warner football teams throughout the state, depending on legislators’ clout. Lawmakers also give tens of thousands of dollars to interest groups like AARP and the Empire State Pride Agenda, which lobby elected officials.

Yes, there is pork aplenty in the first budget passed under Gov. Eliot Spitzer — $170 million worth of pet projects divvied up by the Assembly and the Senate in a budget with a spending increase three times the rate of inflation.

Still, after several years during which pork-barrel spending was decided behind closed doors by George E. Pataki and the legislative leaders, pet projects are once again being delineated line by line. Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo has also set up new procedures for vetting the projects. On the other hand, there are no details identifying who sponsored any particular spending item in the budget or what the item is being used for, though each is identified by party and as coming from either the Senate or Assembly.

There are some familiar recipients, including the Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services, a Jewish charity closely tied to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Ohel and affiliated groups receive more than $1 million in the new budget.

Consistency can be a casualty. So, for instance, the Colonial Rifle and Pistol Club, on Staten Island, gets $5,000 from one lawmaker while New Yorkers Against Gun Violence gets $4,500 from another. Senate Republicans are sending $50,000 of taxpayer funds to Safari Club International, a Tucson-based hunting organization that among other things supports removing grizzly bears and gray wolves from the endangered species list.

With the Legislature on vacation for the first two weeks of April, a Senate spokesman was not able to provide further details. Christina Perez, a spokeswoman for Safari, said most of the money would be used to teach children about firearms safety and to help pay for a prisoner rehabilitation program that the group helps run at the Wyoming Correctional Facility in Attica, N.Y.

“The last $5,000 goes for wood for their blue-boxes program,” Ms. Perez said of Safari’s New York affiliate. “They build nests for bluebirds and give them away.”

No Deposit Required, Yet

After the Senate rejected his budget proposal to require nickel deposits on bottles of noncarbonated beverages like water and iced tea, Governor Spitzer said he was still “hopeful that we will have a bottle bill, in some form, this legislative session.”

Some of that optimism carried into the final budget, which passed on April 1. Although the governor did not get his bottle bill, he won approval to add three positions to the Department of Environmental Conservation to work on the bottle bill — a lawyer and two program specialists. An aide to the governor said that the new staff members would help oversee the existing bottle law, which places deposits only on carbonated beverages, until the law changes. MICHAEL COOPER

A Win for Nuclear Interests

Governor Spitzer’s original budget proposal called for charging New York’s nuclear power plants $13 million to help pay for the costs the state incurs from using its National Guard to provide extra security at the plants. But the energy companies that own the plants are major campaign contributors, and employ well-connected lobbyists in Albany to protect their interests.

The proposal was killed by the Legislature.

“This proposed fee places a financial burden on nuclear power companies for doing business in New York State,” Senator James W. Wright, an upstate Republican who is chairman of the energy committee, said in a statement celebrating its defeat. “Energy rates in New York State are already too high. The creation of this tax would have encouraged these companies to take their investments, jobs and power to other states.”

Since 2004, Enpac, the political action committee of the Entergy Corporation, which owns the Indian Point nuclear power plant, has contributed more than $130,000 to state and local politicians and parties, campaign finance filings show. Of course, contributions do not always guarantee success: While the filings show that Enpac contributed to Senator Wright, they also show that it contributed to Governor Spitzer, above. MICHAEL COOPER

Property Tax Give and Take

Something to keep in mind around mid-April: The state’s new $1.3 billion school property tax relief program is taxable. That’s right, for those who itemize property tax deductions on either their federal or state returns, New York’s property tax rebate checks, which were doubled this year, are effectively taxable income, according to Edmund J. McMahon, director of the Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative group.

Because of differences between New York and federal tax rules, more New Yorkers are likely to itemize on their federal returns and not on their state returns, Mr. McMahon said. In a hypothetical situation he described in a research note last week, Joe and Debbie Jones have a $5,000 property tax bill and get a $400 rebate check from the state. Because they itemize their deductions, they can claim only $4,600 in property taxes paid on their 2007 federal return.

“Most New York homeowners with incomes over $75,000 claim itemized deductions on their federal returns and thus will find that their newly increased property tax rebate is effectively ‘taxed’ at the federal level,” Mr. McMahon wrote.

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