Hosp pulls in Silver dollars

Shel’s slush-fund payouts

New YorkPresbyterian Hospital was the biggest beneficiary of state money from a slush fund controlled by former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, records show.

Not only did NYP cancer researcher Dr. Robert Taub rake in $500,000 from the fund — while referring patients to Silver’s law firm — but the hospital got $3 million for renovation work in its ERs.

The dental school at the affiliated Columbia University Medical Center took in another $1 million to pay for a clinic and mobiletreatment van.

The slush fund paid out $38.6 million in taxpayer money from 1999 to 2009 to hospitals, healthcare agencies and other nonprofits, according to records obtained by The Post under a Freedom of Information request to the state Health Department.

The money was used to pay for salaries, buy equipment, build facilities, shore up struggling hospitals and fund research.

The funding for the socalled HCRA Assembly Pool came from taxes, in cluding a surcharge on insurers implemented under the state Health Care Reform Act. The Assembly got up to $8.5 million a year to add to the pool.

All it took to score a grant from the pool was a letter from Silver to the Health Department with a form on how it would be spent, court papers allege.

“Silver was able to distribute money from the HCRAAssembly Pool at his discretion, with no public disclosure of the disbursement, its recipient or its intended purpose,” prosecutors say in the indictment against Silver on corruption charges.

Charged in January, he has pleaded not guilty. A trial is set for November.

Taub sent a letter in 2004 to Silver’s district office asking for state funds for his mesothelioma center, where he treated and researched the cancer caused by asbestos.

Silver directed two HCRA grants to Taub, in 2005 and 2007. They paid for staff, including a nurse and a data coordinator, state records show.

Taub had been referring patients to Weitz & Luxenberg, the law firm where Silver was of counsel. Sil ver got millions of dollars in referral fees. Taub has not been charged.

Public Health Solutions, a downtown nonprofit conducting health research, also made a request to Silver’s office for funding. It received five grants from the HCRA pool totaling $1.4 million, state records show.

The money was used for a childhoodobesity program. Some program materials say it was supported by a grant from Silver, and others give him “special thanks.”

A Public Health Solutions rep did not return requests for comment.

The United Hospital Fund, a nonprofit headed by former Assemblyman Jim Tallon, got $2 million in HCRA funds in 2005 and 2006 to support its Medicaid Institute.

A spokesman for the group said it made a grant request to Assembly staff.

The Finger Lakes Health Systems Agency in Rochester raked in $1.7 million in HCRA funding in four grants from 2002 to 2006.

An agency spokeswoman said it appealed to its local assemblyman, David Gantt, for the funds.