Just as the swallows famously returned to San Juan Capistrano each spring to rebuild their nests, so do state lawmakers return to Albany to line the nests of public employees.

In the Albany rite, legislators curry favor with public-sector unions by proposing to enhance benefits for a class of state or local workers, with no regard to the fiscal impact.

This year’s 90-plus pension- and benefit-sweetener bills could cost state and local governments up to $200 million.

While the current bills are less sweeping than some past giveaways, the Empire Center’s E.J. McMahon says, “They’re all objectionable.”

After all, sweeteners end-run the collective-bargaining process to add to already-generous retirement and disability benefits — at taxpayer expense.

And many of the current bills do so “without a convincing rationale,” notes David Friedfel of the Citizens Budget Commission.

State Sen. Martin Golden (R-B’klyn) wants to ease rules for NYPD disability pensions at a cost of $13.5 million, and to provide new death benefits for city sanitation workers at a cost of $14.4 million.

Upstate Sen. Patty Ritchie proposes $13.7 million in new death benefits for state correction officers.

And those are just three of the biggest gifts now on the table.

Yet the “list price” is often false advertising: A decade ago, the Legislature had to fire the actuarial consultant who ruled on such measures’ fiscal impact — because he was also being paid by the unions, and his numbers often showed it.

Seamy as they are, some sweeteners usually make it into law: Last year, Gov. Cuomo vetoed only six of the 10 that the Citizens Budget Commission had called on him to ax.

Every state power-broker plays the game — to the shame of them all.

© 2017 New York Post