NY state senators used false titles to get paid

ALBANY, N.Y. — The New York State comptroller’s office has rejected tens of thousands of dollars in stipends for five state senators after an investigation revealed that the lawmakers had been assigned false titles as chairs of committees they did not lead and as a result had been paid for jobs they did not hold.

The action came less than a month after the comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, a Democrat, had warned Republican officials in the Senate that documents describing the five senators — all Republicans or members of a group of rogue Democrats who have collaborated with the GOP — were demonstrably false. In each case, the senators were listed — and therefore being paid — as chairs of various Senate committees when they actually were vice chairs, an unpaid position.

Documents about the denied stipends were obtained through a Freedom of Information request. They show that lawyers for the Senate Republicans had argued that the senators’ stipends should be paid because “it is within the prerogative of the Senate to name its officers” and “to cause the payment for those services.”

The lawyers also accused the comptroller of violating the separation of powers doctrine, according to a March 20 letter signed by David Lewis, the Senate majority’s counsel, saying it “expects that the comptroller shall obey the constitution requirement and pay the allowances.”

But DiNapoli’s office rejected that reasoning.

“Where is the authority for payment to be made to a member of the Senate in the special capacity of ‘vice chair’ of a committee?” wrote Christopher Gorka, the deputy comptroller, on March 23.

The state comptroller’s office already had paid 25 percent of the yearly stipend to the five senators but declined the remaining 75 percent — totaling $54,750 — that was due to be paid this week.