Veto Bait for the Gov

Gov. Cuomo has a strong record when it comes to vetoing the Legislature’s “benefit sweeteners” for state employees, and this year he has 19 more giveaways to kill.

Sweeteners grant union members new benefits without the union having to negotiate for them: They’re a pure gift to a special interest. The nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission tracks these bills every year, and its latest report explains in detail why all 19 bills are losers for the general public.

If Cuomo signed all 19, the cost would total more than $71 million in the first year — and that’s without accounting for the seven measures passed without the (supposedly required) cost estimate.

Which is just one sign of how unseriously

the Legislature takes its duties to the public on this front. Another sign: Cuomo vetoed three of these same bills — all increasing eligibility for disability pensions in fiscally strapped Nassau County — just last year.

Other bills boost eligibility for other benefits for various cops, court officers, firefighters and so on here and there across the state; award costly new privileges, such as granting a right to demand binding arbitration, and so on.

Again, every union is free to raise these issues come contract time — and offer concessions to pay for the added benefits.

Cuomo vetoed all 12 sweeteners that reached his desk last year. We join the CBC in urging him to keep up that tradition in 2019.