Albany Times Union<\/a>, examined the state\u2019s network of ethics and oversight entities, including elected officials like the attorney general and comptroller, as well as bodies such as the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government, Legislative Ethics Commission and Authorities Budget Office.<\/p>\n\u201cWe have so many different bodies. Are they working together effectively, and are they as strong as they could be?\u201d said Rachael Fauss, senior policy adviser for Reinvent Albany. \u201cOur answer is no.”<\/p>\n
On Wednesday\u2019s episode of Capital Tonight, Fauss and Alexandra Dufresne, director of the State Policy Advocacy Clinic at Cornell University\u2019s Brooks School of Public Policy, delved into the report\u2019s key findings and recommendations.<\/p>\n
One problem identified by the study is funding. The report found that inadequate staffing and resources can make it difficult for oversight agencies to do their jobs, while the budget process itself can create potential conflicts as politicians with human instincts mull how much to fund the very offices tasked with policing their actions in office.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t need ethics bodies worrying about their budgets, especially when they\u2019re investigating the people who determine their budgets,\u201d Fauss said.<\/p>\n
Dufresne said funding should be structured in a stable way far from the ebbs and flows of the budget process so ethics bodies are not vulnerable to changing political pressures.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that they\u2019re not susceptible to the vagaries of the political whims of any particular moment. You want to insulate the process from the elected who have their own pressure, especially when elections are coming up,\u201d Dufresne said.<\/p>\n
The report also found appointees should be better insulated from removal and recommended improving communication among the state\u2019s various oversight agencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cBetween the various agencies \u2014 more communication \u2014 a mechanism by which agencies are very clear when they accept a referral for investigation and are very clear and transparent about what they have chosen to do about that,\u201d Dufresne said.<\/p>\n
Those involved with the study stressed that many of the challenges are inherent to the size and complexity of New York state government and described the findings as recommendations for strengthening the system, rather than criticism of those currently doing the work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new study conducted by researchers at the State Policy Advocacy Clinic at Cornell University\u2019s Jeb E. Brooks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[206,295,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,112,108,87,200],"class_list":["post-319938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-albany-capital-region","tag-jack-arpey","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-news","tag-ny-state-of-politics","tag-ny-state-of-politics-blog","tag-politics","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}