It's called a "sweep." Imagine if all the money for the state's various special funds were on a big table, and Gov. David Paterson reached out his arm and dragged it across the top of those stack of bills and pushed the greenbacks into a giant gunny sack labeled, "General Fund."
New York has been doing it for years -- taking money earmarked for dozens of special programs, collected from dedicated fees, and using the funds to make up budget imbalances.
"Much of it is money that would be expended but the time has not come up yet for it to be spent," said County Clerk Don Read. "In (sweeping), they tend to make liars out of us who have to collect that money and tell people (what it’s used for)."
Two examples out of the County Clerk's Office: document fees and snowmobile license fees. The state has taken more than $500,000 from that fund over the past three years, Read said.
The first fee is used to fund grants for cities, schools, libraries and other smaller agencies to store, maintain and retain important records, and to modernize old systems.The snowmobile fee -- $90 for a non-snowmobile club member, $45 for members -- is used to maintain trails and facilities for snowmobilers.
Paterson's office is planning a $1 million sweep from the snowmobile fund this year.
"By sweeping out that money, there’s less to distribute to the grants, so a number of grants just don’t get funded," Read said. "Yet, we still have to tell the people that’s what we collect the money for."
The New York Post recently ran a story about Albany sweeping $8.5 million from a fund dedicated to building a veteran's retirement home.
Photo: Don Read from a previous story about license plates.
