A red-faced Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver yesterday ordered new cost estimates on union-backed legislation after it was revealed that phony numbers were being used to artificially lower the projections.

The new estimates of the cost to taxpayers will be prepared for about 100 labor-friendly bills now under consideration by the state Legislature.

The actuary who dreamed up the original cost projections, Jonathan Schwartz, has admitted to low-balling figures to please the powerful labor unions that pay him consulting fees.

Over the years, lawmakers have relied on Schwartz’s analysis on hundreds of pieces of legislation to sweeten pensions, grant early retirement or protect health benefits.

“It’s just thoroughly corrupt,” Mayor Bloomberg said on his WOR radio show yesterday.

Bloomberg is currently battling two bills the city estimates would cost $300 million annually by lowering the retirement age of two groups of city workers.

Schwartz certified so-called “fiscal notes” on both bills that said they would come at no additional cost to taxpayers.

The city union group that is pushing the bills, District Council 27, paid Schwartz $10,000 last year.

The bills were sponsored by Assemblyman Peter Abbate Jr. (D-Brooklyn) and Sen. Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn). Neither lawmaker returned calls for comment yesterday.

The New York Times reported yesterday that Schwartz had likely fudged the numbers.

“I got a little bit carried away in my formulation,” he reportedly said.

Budget watchdogs said the flap reveals the extent of organized labor’s influence in Albany.

“The jig is up, at least with this particular consultant,” said E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center. “It shows that the unions literally write their own ticket here. It’s been the case for quite some time.”

Silver (D-Manhattan) announced that he would require new cost estimates on the more than 100 pending pieces of legislation Schwartz had vetted.

“He’s a professional who should represent to the public that he’s a professional and that he does things in a professional fashion,” Silver said in an interview on Talk 1300 in Albany.

“An accountant who says, ‘Well, it depends who my clients are what numbers might result,’ is not worthy of being called a professional.”

Nonetheless, Silver argued Schwartz’s impact was limited.

The Assembly’s Ways & Means conducts its own fiscal analysis and consults with the state Comptroller before advancing bills to a vote, he said.

The Senate’s Republican majority scoffed at the policy of the other chamber and said it requires several fiscal analyses of the numbers, including one by the Senate Finance committee.

“From our standpoint, we don’t rely on any one fiscal note or actuary’s estimate, particularly if it comes from an interested party,” said John McArdle, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. With Post Wire Services

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