The state Assembly has issued an official list of 2007-08 “Legislative Initiatives” — a.k.a. member items, or pork-barrel spending. The list can be downloaded here.
For the first time in a regular state budget cycle, the list discloses the names of sponsors of pork-barrel spending items, along with a brief description of the purpose of each grant and the name of the project director for the agency receiving the money.
The Assembly list consists of 3,791 pages, with each page representing a separate item for both M ajority (Democrat) and Minority (Republican) members. Still unclear is whether all these grants were actually itemized in the 2007-08 budget bills, where the Empire Center counted a total of only 2,412 Assembly items.
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