Requests for funds ignored by Cuomo admin, panel says

Commission can’t hire executive directors, slowing its efforts

A bipartisan commission tasked with redrawing New York’s legislative and congressional district lines needs money to begin hiring staff. But the Cuomo administration has so far ignored commissioners’ requests for funding.

The lack of response was alleged during Wednesday ’s meeting of the Independent Redistricting Commission, a 10-person panel created by a 2014 amendment to New York’s constitution that was supposed to give greater voice to both political parties during the once-a-decade drawing of district lines.

Cuomo supported the 2014 amendment reforming a process that for decades allowed majority Democrats in the Assembly and Republicans in the state Senate to draw their own district lines. This year’s state budget appropriated $750,000 to the Department of State, which was then meant to staff the newly created commission. But amid a major budget deficit, the agency has not released those funds to the commission, even as the body faces tight deadlines to complete its work next year.

Commissioners said a letter about the lack of funding signed by both the Democratic and Republican appointees got no response from state Budget Director Robert Mujica and legislative leaders.

Elaine Frazier, an appointee of Democratic Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, expressed frustration. “We can write letters until the cows come home,” she said. “I’m about lettered out.”

Commissioner George Winner, a Republican former state senator, said the four GOP commissioners are ready to hire their pick to be one of the body ’s two executive directors. The Democratic appointees will also choose an executive director.

“It would appear our efforts are being thwarted by some of the powers that be,” Winner said.

“It is intentional. It is not inadvertent,” added another Republican former state senator, Jack Martins, who is also on the commission. “It’s the last day of September. We have a job to do. And we all understand we’re all well beyond where we should be right now.” The hiring is not optional: The 2014 constitutional amendment requires the hiring of co-executive directors. Once they ’re on board, they would be able to hire further staff for the commission.

Asked by the Times Union about the commissioners’ unreturned letter, Freeman Klopott, a spokesman for the state Division of the Budget, said the funding for the commission would be released “as soon as possible.”

“Setting the histrionics aside and to be clear: These funds aren’t being held back and we intend to release them as soon as possible in consultation with the Department of State,” Klopott said.

State Senate Republicans suspect the independent panel is being intentionally undermined, which could lead to missed deadlines and triggered provisions allowing majority state Senate Democrats to take control of the line-drawing. The situation is a sharp reversal: Republicans for decades controlled the process, but lost the majority in the chamber in 2018 and are expected to remain in the minority when redistricting plays out before the 2022 elections. Senate Democrats moved forward this summer on another proposed constitutional amendment — which would be voted upon in November 2021 — that would advantage Senate Democrats and reshape the commission’s process midstream.