ALBANY—There’s $400 million for economic development projects, probably on Long Island, with details to come. Both the State Assembly and Senate have tens of millions to dole out to school districts and libraries, at their discretion. And at least 1,800 old earmarks for local governments and nonprofits around the state were once again given a lifeline, a total of $23 million for everything from the American Legion post in Wantagh to the Utica Zoo.

It’s pork, by most definitions, and the just-adopted state budget has several billion dollars of it.

While legislators have touted the new spending plan for increasing aid to public schools and Governor Andrew Cuomo said its overhaul of teacher evaluations will be one of his greatest legacies, fiscal analysts note that the old practices of doling out cash to pet projects on a discretionary basis is alive and well.

“The majority of these are to curry political favor with either organizations in districts, or entire regions—as with the Senate’s appropriation of Long Island funding,” said Ron Deutsch, director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a labor-backed think tank. “But there continues to be very little focus on how these funds are going to be spent—that’s all decided post-budget.”

He was referring to $400 million set aside in a “transformative investment fund” that will be distributed to “regionally significant economic development initiatives that create or retain private-sector jobs” in New York City or Long Island. The fund was created by Republicans who control the State Senate—and occupy all nine seats in Nassau and Suffolk counties—in part to balance out a Cuomo initiative that will competitively distribute $1.5 billion among three upstate regions. It comes on top of $150 million that was set aside for the island from a $5.4 billion cash windfall that came from settlements with major banks.

“It really should be job-creating,” Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, of Nassau County, said of the pot of $550 million during an interview with News 12. “It should be geared toward infrastructure projects, transformative-type project and improving our economy on Long Island so that we can start creating high-paying jobs the way we used to when we had the aerospace industry.”

Cuomo, Skelos and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie opted not to hold a post-budget press conference in Albany, for the first time in years. In the past, Cuomo has used the occasion to display paraphernalia marking the on-time passage of a spending plan, but this year, Assembly debate on several bills stretched past the midnight deadline and the budget wastechnically late.

Speaking to News 12, Skelos explained that while the money in question would be administered by Empire State Development, Republican senators “will have a say.”

Morris Peters, a spokesman for the state’s Budget Division, said, “This fund is not designed to direct member item-like grants to nonprofits or a new little league field; it positions the state to support regionally significant economic development initiatives that have the potential to transform our economic future.”

While the budget has not included new funding for member items—the Albany expression for earmarks—since 2009, this year’s adopted budget re-appropriates money for at least 1,800 grants that were approved in previous years, a Capital analysis found. This includes money for ACORN, a now-defunct community development organization, as well as money for the Ridgewood-Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, a social service juggernaut in Brooklyn that doubled as the political power base for former Assemblyman Vito Lopez. He resigned his seat in 2013 amid a sexual harassment scandal. There are also pots of aid for school districts and libraries, to be doled out by a legislative resolution, totaling almost $55 million, according to Tammy Gamerman of the Citizens Budget Commission.

Peters said the administration was continuing its past practice of allowing old items to be spent down even as it refuses to allow new earmarks. The budget is “being reviewed for potential vetoes,” which are due on April 13. Indeed, Cuomo has criticized “pork” spending and noted that several legislators have abused member items in the past. Earlier this year, in Syracuse, he renewed his criticism.

“I have a difference of opinion with the old Albany mentality,” the governor told reporters, asked about a push by local officials to spend surplus money on sewer improvements. “The state representatives went to Albany and brought back what we called pork barrel, government, state money for their pet projects in the district. I am against pork barrel. I am against legislators bringing back pet projects. That caused a lot of the scandals in Albany, a lot of the cases that were brought against politicians were about that pork barrel mentality and bringing a lot of money back to their cronies in the district.”

Others charge Cuomo has just re-centered the process on himself.

“It used to be that the Legislature could designate the funds all by themselves, now they need the cooperation of the governor,” said Assemblyman Bill Nojay, a Republican from suburban Rochester who voted against the budget. “But that’s a distinction without a difference.”

E.J. McMahon, director of the fiscally conservative Empire Center for Public Policy, defined pork as any spending not applied through a specific program for a dedicated purpose.

He echoed Nojay in responding to Cuomo: “Pork is in the eye of the beholder, that’s always been the case. What he meant by pork, in that context, was any project that didn’t initiate with him.”

McMahon highlighted the growth of what he dubbed “Albany’s biggest, juiciest, capital pork pie”—the State and Municipal Facilities Program—in the last three years. Statutory language provides broad latitude to spend the money, permitting everything from construction vehicles to “economic development projects … that will create or retain jobs.”

Peters, from the Budget Division, explained, “It is the normal work of the State to partner with local governments, sewer districts, public universities, or the MTA in their efforts to build and repair brick and mortar infrastructure.”

The state budget this year runs roughly $150 billion, including the $5.4 billion one-time windfall. McMahon estimated the amount of pork, mostly in unitemized pots like the State and Municipal Facilities Program, at around $2 billion. Dick Dadey, executive director of the good-government advocacy group Citizens Union, tallied even more in a report on “lump sum” budget allocations. (The report did not use the word “pork.”)

“We tagged it at $2.9 billion in the executive [proposed] budget. We’re now up to $3 billion,” Dadey said. “This is worse than pork, because with pork you get to see it. Pork is a bridge to nowhere – you know what it is and who earmarked it. … This is invisible.”

© 2015 Capital New York