June 14, 2017. FPI and other organizations gathered in the Capitol to ask lawmakers to pass reforms that would expand New York State’s contracting guidelines in order to oversee economic development projects and to prevent other bribery and bid-rigging scandals. Reforms that these organizations are pushing for include a “database of deals”, which track public money given to private corporations.
Government-reform organizations including Reinvent Albany, the New York Public Interest Research Group and the League of Women Voters gathered in the state Capitol on Wednesday to beg lawmakers — almost literally — to pass several reforms, including measures that would expand the state’s contracting guidelines to opaque, semi-public entities and create a “database of deals” to track government dollars heading to private businesses.
“We’ve been pushing and pushing and pushing on this,” said Ron Deutsch, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a labor-backed think tank. “If it works for me to get down on my knees and beg, I will do that. I’m hoping that’s not the case.”
Here is the link to Lohud.