Regular Session - May 2, 2005
2224
1 NEW YORK STATE SENATE
2
3
4 THE STENOGRAPHIC RECORD
5
6
7
8
9 ALBANY, NEW YORK
10 May 2, 2005
11 3:08 p.m.
12
13
14 REGULAR SESSION
15
16
17
18 LT. GOVERNOR MARY O. DONOHUE, President
19 STEVEN M. BOGGESS, Secretary
20
21
22
23
24
25
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1 P R O C E E D I N G S
2 THE PRESIDENT: The Senate will
3 please come to order.
4 I ask everyone present to please
5 rise and repeat with me the Pledge of
6 Allegiance.
7 (Whereupon, the assemblage recited
8 the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.)
9 THE PRESIDENT: In the absence of
10 clergy, may we bow our heads in a moment of
11 silence, please.
12 (Whereupon, the assemblage
13 respected a moment of silence.)
14 THE PRESIDENT: Reading of the
15 Journal.
16 THE SECRETARY: In Senate,
17 Sunday, May 1, the Senate met pursuant to
18 adjournment. The Journal of Saturday,
19 April 30, was read and approved. On motion,
20 Senate adjourned.
21 THE PRESIDENT: Without
22 objection, the Journal stands approved as
23 read.
24 Presentation of petitions.
25 Messages from the Assembly.
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1 Messages from the Governor.
2 Reports of standing committees.
3 Reports of select committees.
4 Communications and reports from
5 state officers.
6 Motions and resolutions.
7 Senator Farley.
8 SENATOR FARLEY: Thank you, Madam
9 President.
10 On behalf of Senator Balboni, I
11 wish to call up his bill, Print Number 3095,
12 which was recalled from the Assembly, and it's
13 now at the desk.
14 THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
15 will read.
16 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
17 387, by Senator Balboni, Senate Print 3095, an
18 act authorizing the assessor of the County of
19 Nassau.
20 SENATOR FARLEY: Madam President,
21 I now move to reconsider the vote by which
22 this bill was passed.
23 THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
24 will call the roll upon reconsideration.
25 (The Secretary called the roll.)
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1 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 48.
2 SENATOR FARLEY: Madam President,
3 I now offer the following amendments.
4 THE PRESIDENT: The amendments
5 are received.
6 SENATOR FARLEY: Madam President,
7 these amendments are offered to the following
8 Third Reading Calendar bills:
9 On behalf of Senator Morahan, page
10 21, Calendar 266, Senate Print 2751;
11 For Senator Skelos, on page 28,
12 Calendar 412, Senate Print 496;
13 Senator Wright, on page 30,
14 Calendar 430, Senate Print 2978;
15 On behalf of Senator Volker, on
16 page 31, Calendar 451, Senate Print 1524;
17 On behalf of myself, Senator
18 Farley, on page 38, Calendar 545, Senate Print
19 3289;
20 And on behalf of Senator LaValle,
21 on page 40, Calendar 573, Senate Print 842.
22 Madam President, I now move that
23 these bills retain their place on the order of
24 third reading.
25 THE PRESIDENT: The amendments
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1 are received, and the bills will retain their
2 place on the Third Reading Calendar.
3 SENATOR FARLEY: Thank you.
4 THE PRESIDENT: Senator Skelos.
5 SENATOR SKELOS: Madam President,
6 if we could return to reports of standing
7 committees, I believe there's a report at the
8 desk. I ask that it be read at this time.
9 THE PRESIDENT: Reports of
10 standing committees.
11 The Secretary will read.
12 THE SECRETARY: Senator Seward,
13 from the Committee on Insurance, reports the
14 following bill direct to third reading:
15 Senate Print 5248, by the Senate
16 Committee on Rules, an act to amend the
17 Insurance Law.
18 THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
19 ordered direct to third reading.
20 Senator Skelos.
21 SENATOR SKELOS: Madam President,
22 if we could now return to motions and
23 resolutions, there's a Resolution 1613, by
24 Senator DeFrancisco. Could we have it read in
25 its entirety and move for its immediate
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1 adoption.
2 THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
3 will read.
4 THE SECRETARY: By Senator
5 DeFrancisco, Legislative Resolution Number
6 1613, honoring Detective Diane M. Leshinski of
7 the Onondaga County Sheriff's Department upon
8 the occasion of her designation by the
9 New York State Deputies Association as the
10 2004 Deputy of the Year in the law enforcement
11 category.
12 "WHEREAS, It is the sense of this
13 Legislative Body to honor and pay tribute to
14 those singular individuals who devote their
15 purposeful lives to serving others, thereby
16 expressing its highest regard for their
17 unwavering dedication, courage and personal
18 sacrifice in putting the safety and welfare of
19 others before their own; and
20 "WHEREAS, Attendant to such
21 concern, and fully in accord with its
22 long-standing traditions, the New York State
23 Senate is justly proud to recognize and
24 commend Detective Diane Leshinski of the
25 Onondaga County Sheriff's Department upon the
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1 occasion of her designation by the New York
2 State Deputies Association as the 2004 Deputy
3 of the Year in Law Enforcement; and
4 "WHEREAS, This award is presented
5 annually to a deputy sheriff who has displayed
6 outstanding service in the line of duty; and
7 "WHEREAS, Diane Leshinski was one
8 of six children who grew up on a farm in
9 Middleville, New York. She entered the law
10 enforcement field in 1979 as the first female
11 ever to serve in the Village of Mohawk Police
12 Department. After her service to the village,
13 she transferred to the Onondaga County
14 Sheriff's Department in 1985 and joined as a
15 road patrol deputy; and
16 "WHEREAS, For the past 13 years,
17 Diane Leshinski has served as a detective in
18 the Felony Crimes Unit of the Onondaga County
19 Sheriff's Department, Criminal Investigation
20 Division; and
21 "WHEREAS, Detective Leshinski
22 brings to her job an outstanding educational
23 background. She was awarded an Advanced
24 Fellowship Degree by the New York State
25 Sheriff's Association and the Bureau of
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1 Municipal Police, completing a Master's Degree
2 in Criminal Justice at the State University of
3 Albany in 1991. In addition, she completed a
4 second master's degree, in counseling and
5 psychological services, at the State
6 University of New York at Oswego in 1997; and
7 "WHEREAS, While a member of the
8 Onondaga County Sheriff's Department, Diane
9 has served as a field training officer, a
10 background investigator and as a member of the
11 hiring board for the Sheriff's Office; and
12 "WHEREAS, Detective Leshinski has
13 frequently received special recognition for
14 her work with the department. She was honored
15 with five Sheriff's Office commendations and
16 three letters of recognition. In 2004,
17 Detective Leshinski was named Onondaga County
18 Deputy of the Month for heroic service with
19 the Crisis Negotiations Team for her
20 successful intervention with a suicidal
21 individual in 2004; and
22 "WHEREAS, When not on duty,
23 Detective Leshinski volunteers with the
24 InterReligious Council of Central New York,
25 participating in diversity education and
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1 dialogue circles. She has also been a
2 volunteer counselor with C.O.N.T.A.C.T., and
3 for three years she was a volunteer with the
4 Make-A-Wish Foundation; and
5 "WHEREAS, The specific case for
6 which Detective Leshinski has been recognized
7 as the 2004 Deputy of the Year in Law
8 Enforcement is for her investigative efforts
9 that followed the murder of Melissa Flora; and
10 "WHEREAS, On July 1, 2004, the body
11 of Melissa Flora was discovered at her
12 residence in the village of Solvay. Diane
13 Leshinski was assigned to the case as lead
14 detective. The victim's body had been
15 discovered in her apartment several days after
16 she had last been heard from; and
17 "WHEREAS, Many of those who were
18 interviewed in an effort to solve the case
19 were hostile and uncooperative. Those who
20 were asked to help shed light on the case
21 were, in many cases, drug abusers, as was the
22 victim, and many had a history of violence.
23 The investigation was complicated further
24 since the memories of the drug abusers were
25 frequently inaccurate; and
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1 "WHEREAS, Over the next several
2 months, and despite the difficulties she
3 encountered, Diane Leshinski, as lead
4 detective, never lost her focus and dedication
5 as she reviewed evidence, tracked down leads,
6 interviewed witnesses and suspects, and
7 maintained contact with members of the
8 victim's family; and
9 "WHEREAS, As time went by and other
10 detectives were assigned to other cases, the
11 arduous investigation continued under
12 Detective Leshinski's lead. Due to her easy
13 ability to maintain a good rapport with
14 potential witnesses, she was able to maintain
15 contact with those who could help the
16 investigation. Eventually, Detective
17 Leshinski was able to gain the trust of two
18 individuals who later provided critical
19 information which tied a predicate felon to
20 the victim's vehicle just minutes after she
21 was murdered; and
22 "WHEREAS, After months of
23 painstaking investigation, Detective Leshinski
24 was able to provide sufficient witness
25 accounts to the prosecutor which led to an
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1 indictment of a suspect for murder in the
2 second degree. Ten months of hard work had
3 passed prior to the indictment; and
4 "WHEREAS, Detective Leshinski's
5 superiors cited her exceptional ability to
6 communicate with a wide variety of people
7 under difficult circumstances as the reason
8 for her success in this case, as well as
9 throughout her career. It was her persistence
10 and willingness to interview and reinterview
11 people, as she developed leads, that led to
12 solving this case; and
13 "WHEREAS, Diane Leshinski is
14 well-known as an advocate for victims and the
15 families of victims. She maintained close
16 contact with the victim's family throughout
17 the investigation as she worked and reworked
18 various leads; and
19 "WHEREAS, Her outstanding success
20 has led to her recognition as 2004 Deputy of
21 the Year in the law enforcement category. She
22 has justly earned the admiration and respect
23 of her peers, the community and its citizens.
24 This Legislative Body is proud to now add its
25 commendation, paying tribute to Detective
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1 Leshinski for professionalism and commitment
2 to her community; now, therefore, be it
3 "RESOLVED, That this Legislative
4 Body pause in its deliberations to honor
5 Detective Diane Leshinski upon the occasion of
6 her designation by the New York State Deputies
7 Association as its 2004 Deputy of the Year for
8 Law Enforcement, and to express its pride and
9 gratitude to her on behalf of the people of
10 the State of New York; and be it further
11 "RESOLVED, That a copy of this
12 resolution, suitably engrossed, be transmitted
13 to Detective Leshinski at the Annual
14 Legislative Reception to be held by the
15 New York State Deputies Association on May 2,
16 2005, at LoPorto's Sign of the Tree in Albany,
17 New York."
18 THE PRESIDENT: Senator
19 DeFrancisco.
20 SENATOR DeFRANCISCO: Thank you,
21 Madam President.
22 We're very honored to have deputy
23 Diane Leshinski in the chamber today.
24 You know, for the time that I've
25 been in the Senate -- this is my 13th year --
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1 I know all of us take great pride in the
2 legislation we enact to try to do better as
3 far as the crime activities are in this state,
4 to try to provide the tools to the various law
5 enforcement agencies so those who should be
6 behind bars are behind bars.
7 However, those are just the tools.
8 The people that do the work are those in the
9 field. And Detective Leshinski is the best in
10 the field this year for deputy sheriffs or
11 sheriffs, according to the State Deputies
12 Association. She's the 2004 Deputy Sheriff of
13 the Year for Law Enforcement -- to me, the top
14 category of all the awards that they give.
15 So I'm very honored that she's from
16 our district, and I'm honored that she's here
17 today.
18 And on behalf of everyone in the
19 Senate, I want to thank you and all the other
20 law enforcement officials that do such great
21 work for our community.
22 Thank you.
23 THE PRESIDENT: Senator Valesky.
24 SENATOR VALESKY: Thank you,
25 Madam President. I stand today to rise in
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1 support of this resolution with my colleague
2 from Onondaga County, Senator DeFrancisco.
3 As we heard the words of this
4 resolution, some stand out clearly in my mind,
5 and that talks about the commitment and
6 dedication of Detective Leshinski. Those are
7 why we -- those words are why we are honoring
8 her today, her unwavering dedication, courage
9 and personal sacrifice in putting the safety
10 and welfare of others before her own.
11 As we salute her for being named by
12 the New York State Deputies Association as
13 2004 Deputy of the Year in Law Enforcement,
14 let me also, on behalf of the people of
15 Onondaga County, thank you, Deputy Leshinski,
16 for all that you do in making Onondaga County
17 a better place.
18 THE PRESIDENT: The question is
19 on the resolution. All in favor please
20 signify by saying aye.
21 (Response of "Aye.")
22 THE PRESIDENT: Opposed, nay.
23 (No response.)
24 THE PRESIDENT: The resolution is
25 adopted.
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1 Congratulations and best wishes for
2 continued success.
3 (Standing ovation.)
4 THE PRESIDENT: Senator Skelos.
5 SENATOR SKELOS: Madam President,
6 there's a Resolution 1189 at the desk, by
7 Senator Maltese, which was previously adopted.
8 If we could have the title read at this time,
9 and then if you'd recognize Senator Maltese.
10 THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
11 will read.
12 THE SECRETARY: By Senator
13 Maltese, Legislative Resolution Number 1189,
14 congratulating the Christ the King Regional
15 High School Girls Basketball Team upon the
16 occasion of capturing the New York State
17 Federation Class AA Championship.
18 THE PRESIDENT: Senator Maltese.
19 SENATOR MALTESE: Madam
20 President, I appreciate your indulgence in
21 this matter.
22 As has been mentioned, the Christ
23 the King Regional High School, where I have
24 the honor to be chairman of the board, has
25 emerged as the New York State Federation AA
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1 champions. This in no small part due to their
2 coaches, Bob Mackey and Jill Cook, as well as
3 their athletic director, Carol Timpone.
4 Bob Mackey has a winning record --
5 and he's with us today -- of 153 games won to
6 13. He of course was instrumental in winning
7 the New York State Federation AA Class
8 Championship. He is at the top of USA Today's
9 Super 25 rankings, and he is the WBCA Coach of
10 the Year.
11 The team itself has an overall
12 record this year of 27 to 0. The girls are,
13 quite frankly, a fantastic team, because they
14 combine not only athletic prowess and
15 excellence but good sportsmanship as well as
16 superior academic ability.
17 They are indeed a team that we can
18 be proud of, not only we in Queens County or
19 those of us in the Christ the King Regional
20 High School family, but all of us in New York
21 State, for their exemplary record not only
22 this year but in past years. They are truly a
23 superior team.
24 Joining them today is the Christ
25 the King AP History class, taking courses in
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1 United States government and politics, taking
2 advantage of observing not only this session
3 but being here at the State Capitol. All are
4 in the top 10 percent of the class, and all
5 are college-bound.
6 Madam President, colleagues, I am
7 very proud to welcome today the Christ the
8 King Regional High School Girls Basketball
9 Team and the Christ the King AP History class.
10 Thank you very much.
11 THE PRESIDENT: This resolution
12 was previously adopted on April 5th.
13 Congratulations and continued best
14 wishes.
15 (Applause.)
16 THE PRESIDENT: Senator Skelos.
17 SENATOR SKELOS: Madam President,
18 if we could go to the noncontroversial reading
19 of the calendar.
20 THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
21 will read.
22 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
23 78, by Senator DeFrancisco, Senate Print 47,
24 an act to amend the Real Property Law, in
25 relation to prohibiting certain lease
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1 provisions.
2 THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
3 section.
4 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
5 act shall take effect on the first of
6 September.
7 THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
8 (The Secretary called the roll.)
9 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
10 THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
11 passed.
12 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
13 143, by Senator LaValle, Senate Print 93, an
14 act to amend the Navigation Law, in relation
15 to requiring the use of personal flotation
16 devices.
17 THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
18 section.
19 THE SECRETARY: Section 4. This
20 act shall take effect on the 30th day.
21 THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
22 (The Secretary called the roll.)
23 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
24 THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
25 passed.
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1 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
2 191, by Senator Larkin, Senate Print 415, an
3 act to amend the Education Law, in relation to
4 requiring institutions.
5 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Lay it
6 aside.
7 THE PRESIDENT: The bill is laid
8 aside.
9 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
10 227, by Senator Rath, Senate Print 2637A, an
11 act to adjust certain state aid payments to
12 the Elba Central School District.
13 THE PRESIDENT: There is a local
14 fiscal impact note at the desk.
15 Read the last section.
16 THE SECRETARY: Section 3. This
17 act shall take effect immediately.
18 THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
19 (The Secretary called the roll.)
20 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
21 THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
22 passed.
23 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
24 290, by Member of the Assembly Morelle,
25 Assembly Print Number 1551, an act to amend
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1 the General Business Law, in relation to
2 regulating.
3 THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
4 section.
5 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
6 act shall take effect on the 90th day.
7 THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
8 (The Secretary called the roll.)
9 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
10 THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
11 passed.
12 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
13 392, by Senator Maziarz, Senate Print 3102B,
14 an act to amend the Parks, Recreation and
15 Historic Preservation Law, in relation to
16 creating.
17 THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
18 section.
19 THE SECRETARY: Section 5. This
20 act shall take effect immediately.
21 THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
22 (The Secretary called the roll.)
23 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
24 THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
25 passed.
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1 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
2 433, by Senator Meier, Senate Print 3318, an
3 act in relation to adjusting certain state aid
4 payments.
5 THE PRESIDENT: There is a local
6 fiscal impact note at the desk.
7 Read the last section.
8 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
9 act shall take effect immediately.
10 THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
11 (The Secretary called the roll.)
12 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
13 THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
14 passed.
15 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
16 441, by Senator Skelos, Senate Print 3685B, an
17 act to amend the Executive Law, in relation to
18 establishing an independent office.
19 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Lay it
20 aside.
21 THE PRESIDENT: The bill is laid
22 aside.
23 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
24 449, by Senator Volker, Senate Print 877A, an
25 act to amend the Criminal Procedure Law, in
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1 relation to granting certain powers.
2 THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
3 section.
4 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
5 act shall take effect immediately.
6 THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
7 (The Secretary called the roll.)
8 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
9 THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
10 passed.
11 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
12 452, by Senator Volker, Senate Print 1539 --
13 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Lay it
14 aside.
15 THE PRESIDENT: The bill is laid
16 aside.
17 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
18 461, by Senator Saland, Senate Print 3168, an
19 act to amend the Penal Law, in relation to
20 harassment of teachers.
21 THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
22 section.
23 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
24 act shall take effect on the first of
25 September.
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1 THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
2 (The Secretary called the roll.)
3 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 56. Nays,
4 2. Senators Duane and Montgomery recorded in
5 the negative.
6 THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
7 passed.
8 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
9 499, by Senator Wright, Senate Print 2533, an
10 act to amend the Tax Law, in relation to
11 imposition of sales and compensating use
12 taxes.
13 THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
14 section.
15 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
16 act shall take effect immediately.
17 THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
18 (The Secretary called the roll.)
19 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
20 THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
21 passed.
22 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
23 528, by Senator LaValle, Senate Print 3020, an
24 act to amend the Real Property Tax Law, in
25 relation to extending the date.
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1 THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
2 section.
3 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
4 act shall take effect immediately.
5 THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
6 (The Secretary called the roll.)
7 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
8 THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
9 passed.
10 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
11 534, by Senator Spano, Senate Print 3284, an
12 act to amend the Labor Law and the Public
13 Officers Law, in relation to public access.
14 THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
15 section.
16 THE SECRETARY: Section 7. This
17 act shall take effect on the 60th day.
18 THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
19 (The Secretary called the roll.)
20 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
21 THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
22 passed.
23 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
24 551, by Senator Robach, Senate Print 3894, an
25 act to amend the Retirement and Social
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1 Security Law, in relation to investments.
2 THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
3 section.
4 THE SECRETARY: Section 8. This
5 act shall take effect immediately.
6 THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
7 (The Secretary called the roll.)
8 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
9 THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
10 passed.
11 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
12 552, by Senator Robach --
13 SENATOR ROBACH: Lay it aside for
14 the day, please.
15 THE PRESIDENT: The bill is laid
16 aside for the day.
17 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
18 558, by Senator Maltese, Senate Print 4001, an
19 act to amend Civil Service Law, in relation to
20 the resolution of disputes in the course of
21 collective negotiations.
22 THE PRESIDENT: Read the last
23 section.
24 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
25 act shall take effect immediately.
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1 THE PRESIDENT: Call the roll.
2 (The Secretary called the roll.)
3 THE SECRETARY: Ayes, 58.
4 THE PRESIDENT: The bill is
5 passed.
6 Senator Skelos, that completes the
7 noncontroversial reading of the calendar.
8 SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you, Madam
9 President.
10 As we embark upon our journey to
11 the controversial calendar, I'd just like to
12 mention that having taken a long journey to
13 come to this country are members of the
14 Knights of Malta from Italy.
15 So we do welcome them to our
16 chamber today.
17 (Applause.)
18 THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary
19 will ring the bell, and members should return
20 to their seats.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
22 Skelos.
23 SENATOR SKELOS: Madam President,
24 if we could go to the controversial reading of
25 the calendar.
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1 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: The
2 Secretary will read.
3 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
4 191, by Senator Larkin, Senate Print 415, an
5 act to amend the Education Law, in relation to
6 requiring institutions.
7 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN:
8 Explanation.
9 SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER:
10 Explanation.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
12 Larkin, for an explanation.
13 SENATOR LARKIN: Madam President,
14 Senator Krueger, this is a bill you and I
15 discussed last year. This is a bill that was
16 passed.
17 Don't make me talk too long,
18 Schneiderman.
19 (Laughter.)
20 SENATOR LARKIN: You know, there
21 was a question last time about did we ever
22 talk to any of the colleges. I've talked to
23 about 10 or 12 colleges since last year, and
24 the question comes up about dependency.
25 And that's where the colleges in my
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1 district felt that it was a very fine
2 justification. Because, if you know, the law
3 authorizes, it doesn't mandate that you will
4 do this to the parent. And I think that was a
5 concern that you had.
6 But when you start to look at this,
7 under the current law, there's no obligation
8 to do anything. But by giving them the
9 authority, for those who have parents
10 providing the tuition, room and board and
11 everything else, there's many people who
12 believe that they have an obligation, if they
13 so desire, to go to the college and say: I'd
14 like to find out what my $40,000 a year is
15 getting for me.
16 And basically, that's all this
17 says.
18 SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: Thank you.
19 SENATOR LARKIN: And my kids are
20 all paid for.
21 SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: Thank you.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
23 Krueger.
24 SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: Thank you,
25 Madam President. On the bill.
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1 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
2 Krueger, on the bill.
3 SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: Thank you.
4 And I certainly didn't want to make you speak
5 too long, Senator Larkin. Thank you.
6 And you're right, we've debated
7 this in the past and I've had concerns about
8 the authority of parents to get this
9 information on college students, since I do
10 believe that, under my belief in what the role
11 of state government should be, that we should
12 not be imposing ourselves on adult
13 child-parent relationships.
14 I would like to ask you to consider
15 pulling your bill for today, Senator Larkin,
16 because since our last conversation, and
17 before I had a chance to talk to you today, I
18 found that under federal law, the Family
19 Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 --
20 shorthand, FERPA -- 20 USC, 34 CFR, Part 99,
21 that federal law says that in order to receive
22 funds under an applicable program of the U.S.
23 Department of Education, that certain rights
24 are given to parents with respect to their
25 children's educational records, but these
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1 rights transfer to the student when he or she
2 reaches the age of 18 or attends a school
3 beyond the high school level.
4 And then it very specifically
5 spells out that in fact the school doesn't
6 have the right to give these documents or
7 records to anyone without the student's
8 permission.
9 So while I recognize that your law,
10 proposed law would say that parents would have
11 to specifically ask the schools for the right
12 to get their children's grades, that in fact
13 we would be putting, if this law went into
14 effect, our educational institutions at risk
15 of losing their right to federal funding under
16 the FERPA law.
17 So I don't change my position about
18 the bill from past years, that I don't think
19 New York State should be inserting itself into
20 the relationship between college-age students
21 and their parents. And that if college
22 students' parents want to say, Give me your
23 grades or I don't pay the $40,000, I think
24 that's a perfectly reasonable analysis by the
25 parent and the student.
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1 But my concern, as before, is the
2 state shouldn't insert itself into this
3 process. But in fact, based on federal law, I
4 don't think we legally want to insert
5 ourselves into the process, because we'd be
6 putting our institutions of higher education
7 in direct conflict between federal privacy
8 rights for students over the age of 18 and
9 then state law.
10 So I will share this report with
11 you. I believe this is still a one-house
12 bill, so even if it were to pass today, I hope
13 we'll take a more careful look at this before
14 we move forward and again would suggest, based
15 on the fact that I think we're violating
16 federal law if we move forward with this law,
17 that we ought to rethink it before we go
18 forward.
19 Thank you, Madam President.
20 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
21 Robach.
22 SENATOR ROBACH: Yes, Madam
23 President, on the bill.
24 I would like to commend Senator
25 Larkin and just say very briefly that I think
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1 for the amount of students who are really
2 emancipated, 18, are going on their own way,
3 making their own money, this is not an issue.
4 I think this is a bolstering for
5 the vast majority of parents, which I am one
6 of, who are involved financially, emotionally,
7 in every way in our kids' college life, and we
8 want to make sure they're staying on the right
9 track.
10 I think giving them that
11 information, allowing them access, makes all
12 the sense in the world, both as a legislator
13 and as a parent, and want to commend Senator
14 Larkin and encourage a yes vote on a bill that
15 I think helps students and bolsters parents
16 who are very functional and interested in what
17 goes on in their children's lives.
18 Thank you.
19 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
20 you, Senator.
21 Is there any other Senator wishing
22 to be heard?
23 The debate is closed.
24 The Secretary will ring the bell.
25 Read the last section.
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1 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
2 act shall take effect on the first of January.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Call
4 the roll.
5 (The Secretary called the roll.)
6 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
7 Montgomery, to explain your vote.
8 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Yes, Madam
9 President, to explain my vote.
10 I'm going to support this
11 legislation. I do understand the issues that
12 have been raised by Senator Krueger, but I
13 also understand, as a parent, that you get to
14 a point in the relationship between a parent
15 and the young person, I will say the child,
16 when they just stop communicating. I just
17 think it's the nature of what happens to young
18 people. And you ask them what's happening,
19 and they say nothing or they give you one-word
20 answers. It's not very helpful, and there's
21 very little that you can do about it as a
22 parent.
23 But I do think that it is still
24 important, even though they're 18, to be more
25 a part of helping to guarantee that they're
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1 moving in the right direction, that they're
2 being successful, and that if there's anything
3 that you need to be doing in addition to what
4 you are already doing, that you know when to
5 move and how to move. And that very often and
6 probably won't come from them.
7 So I'm going to support this,
8 because I certainly do want to know, I would
9 like to know how my son is doing in school. I
10 know that he is not going to tell me the whole
11 truth. And I want to be able to move
12 appropriately, if necessary.
13 So I commend Senator Larkin on
14 this. And certainly this is for New York
15 State; there are some states that have not --
16 that don't have this law in place, and that
17 creates a problem for those of us who have
18 children in those states.
19 But nonetheless, I think it's a
20 good law for New York State, and I'm
21 supporting it.
22 Thank you.
23 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
24 you. Senator Montgomery will be recorded in
25 the affirmative.
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1 The Secretary will announce the
2 results.
3 THE SECRETARY: Those recorded in
4 the negative on Calendar Number 191 are
5 Senators Breslin, Duane, L. Krueger, Parker,
6 Serrano, and A. Smith. Ayes, 52. Nays, 6.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: The
8 bill is passed.
9 The Secretary will read.
10 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
11 441, by Senator Skelos, Senate Print 3685B, an
12 act to amend the Executive Law, in relation to
13 establishing.
14 SENATOR SAVINO: Explanation.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
16 Skelos, for an explanation.
17 SENATOR SKELOS: Thank you, Madam
18 President.
19 You know, as you know, in the past
20 two years the issue of Medicaid has become a
21 significant if not the most significant issue
22 facing this Legislature and the state.
23 This year we enacted a historic
24 cap, and by the year 2008 the Medicaid program
25 will be administered by the state. While the
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1 cap will alleviate the local property
2 taxpayers and counties of an enormous burden,
3 true reform is needed to control the program's
4 skyrocketing costs and ensure that our health
5 care resources are going to those who truly
6 need help, the poor.
7 The system needs to be made more
8 accountable to the taxpayer. This bill is an
9 important step in this direction. According
10 to public and private sector studies, we lose
11 billions of dollars a year to Medicaid fraud.
12 Unlike the complex, overlapping structure in
13 place now, this bill creates a single
14 independent entity to investigate -- and I use
15 the word "investigate" -- Medicaid fraud and
16 coordinate the state's recovery efforts.
17 Through the creation of a Medicaid
18 inspector general, we will create a
19 streamlined, efficient system that clearly
20 separates the three distinct responsibilities
21 involved: Data collection, which will remain
22 with the Department of Health; investigation,
23 which will be with the inspector general; and
24 prosecution, which will be maintained in the
25 Office of the Attorney General.
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1 This new office of Medicaid
2 inspector general will work with and provide
3 assistance to the Attorney General and local
4 prosecutors, to enable more prosecutions of
5 criminals that rip off New York State
6 taxpayers. The office of the inspector
7 general cannot commence criminal actions
8 themselves.
9 Now, the statistics don't lie. We
10 have the largest Medicaid program in the
11 country, but we're not recovering as much as
12 we can or should in Medicaid fraud. This is a
13 bold plan. We've worked with the Department
14 of Health and Human Services in the federal
15 government to develop this legislation and
16 ensure that it complies with federal laws and
17 regulations.
18 We've incorporated the concerns
19 raised by the Attorney General in the initial
20 bill that was introduced, and we've received
21 support from the New York Association of
22 Counties.
23 New York State taxpayers deserve
24 nothing less than a Medicaid system that is
25 accountable to them. And this is the type of
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1 reform that will go a long way in making sure
2 that not only will the poor be able to obtain
3 the services that they deserve, but also the
4 system will not be ripped off by those who
5 would abuse the system.
6 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
7 you.
8 Senator Savino.
9 SENATOR SAVINO: Madam President,
10 would the sponsor yield for a question.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
12 you.
13 Senator Skelos, would you yield?
14 SENATOR SKELOS: Yes, I shall.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Yes.
16 SENATOR SAVINO: Thank you, Madam
17 President. Through you, has there been an
18 evaluation of the current procedures and of
19 the technology in place that shows deficiency
20 in the existing fraud detection system?
21 SENATOR SKELOS: I believe that
22 this will be a new, streamlined, more
23 efficient system where everybody will talk to
24 each other and that the inspector general will
25 do what he or she should do best, and that's
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1 investigate.
2 We want to build on the strengths
3 of the Department of Health, in terms of data
4 collection; the inspector general, whose sole
5 purpose will be to investigate; and the
6 Attorney General, whose sole purpose will be
7 to prosecute and to obtain restitution.
8 SENATOR SAVINO: Madam President.
9 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
10 you. Senator Savino.
11 SENATOR SAVINO: Through you, if
12 the sponsor would continue to yield.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
14 Skelos, will you continue to yield?
15 SENATOR SAVINO: Again, unless we
16 determine what is wrong with the current
17 system of fraud detection, how do we attempt
18 to create a system that will work in a new
19 agency? What I haven't yet heard --
20 SENATOR SKELOS: Well, you know,
21 I was sort of hoping this would go on the
22 noncontroversial calendar, because whenever
23 you bring up statistics, it will then be
24 indicated that there's something political
25 about what is happening with this legislation.
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1 Let me just say this. From 2001 to
2 2003, for every dollar that we spent in
3 New York State on Medicaid fraud detection, we
4 recovered 72 cents. So there's something
5 wrong with the system right now.
6 We're not looking to accuse or
7 point fingers. What we're looking to do is
8 reform the system. And that seems to be a big
9 word right now, is "reform," which I believe
10 this legislation will do. It will reform a
11 very dysfunctional system of collection and
12 prosecuting Medicaid fraud that exists right
13 now in the State of New York.
14 SENATOR SAVINO: Madam President,
15 on the bill.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
17 you. Senator Savino, on the bill.
18 SENATOR SAVINO: Certainly
19 recognizing that Medicaid fraud is a critical
20 problem that the state faces, and having spent
21 many years working in the social service
22 delivery system in New York City representing
23 people who do Medicaid fraud and do welfare
24 fraud, I will tell you, the creation of a new
25 bureaucracy is not the answer to improving
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1 Medicaid fraud.
2 The answer to improving Medicaid
3 fraud detection is taking a look at the
4 current system in place, recognizing where
5 there are deficiencies, and improving them.
6 That I have not heard an answer
7 from either you or anyone else as to what this
8 new agency will do differently, except become
9 a separate agency, a new bureaucracy, in
10 essence, to do the same thing that the current
11 system does, that current system which has
12 proven that it has -- it has recovered record
13 dollars, a 29-year record -- more money this
14 year than we have in the past 29 years. So
15 we've recovered more than $65 million this
16 year alone under the current Medicaid fraud
17 collection unit.
18 Obviously, something is working.
19 Are there deficiencies? Perhaps there are.
20 We need to examine them, not create a new
21 bureaucracy, a new layer of government.
22 Improve the current layer of government and
23 continue to work towards not just fraud
24 collection, but fraud detection. I haven't
25 heard anybody talk yet about preventing fraud
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1 in the Medicaid system, just the collection of
2 money upon the prosecution.
3 So on that, I will be voting
4 against this bill, because I think the
5 creation of a new bureaucracy is not the
6 answer. We should go back and see what's
7 wrong with the current system and improve that
8 first.
9 Thank you.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
11 Skelos.
12 SENATOR SKELOS: If I could
13 comment on that, Madam President.
14 You're absolutely wrong. We're not
15 creating a new bureaucracy. And I know that
16 that is a good sound bite, but that is not
17 what's happening here.
18 Right now there are approximately
19 300 people in the State of New York working in
20 our current Medicaid fraud control unit. We
21 are recovering less than just about every
22 other state in the nation.
23 I mentioned the 72 cents for every
24 dollar. At the same time, California, with
25 189 employees, recovered 200 percent more;
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1 Florida, with 127 employees, 300 percent
2 more -- no? Then I'm going to correct myself.
3 But they all recovered more. And I'll use the
4 statistics.
5 Texas, for every dollar spent,
6 $4.96 recovered. Florida, for every dollar
7 spent, $3.14 recovered. California, for every
8 dollar spent, $1.98. New York, 72 cents.
9 Now, in Texas they receive -- well,
10 in New York State we receive Medicaid fraud
11 control unit money from the federal government
12 $30.6 million, 295 members of staff, and we
13 recovered $24 million. That's out of a
14 roughly $44 billion budget.
15 California, $16.2 million in
16 dollars from the federal government, 189 in
17 staff, recovered $39.4 million out of a
18 $30 billion budget.
19 Washington, D.C., $1.2 million in
20 funding, 16 employees, 16 employees, and they
21 have an inspector general in Washington, D.C.,
22 recovered $13 million. And certainly their
23 Medicaid program comes nowhere near the
24 $44 billion Medicaid program that we have in
25 this state.
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1 Now, Senator, you mentioned the
2 $62 million that was recovered. While we
3 collected around $62 million, $30.8 million of
4 that was from a national pharmaceutical
5 settlement negotiated by the National
6 Association of Medicaid Fraud Control Units,
7 with no New York State involvement.
8 That leaves about $32 million that
9 was recovered by our state Medicaid fraud
10 control unit, or about the same amount as in
11 the past. Of the $62 million our state
12 Medicaid fraud control unit recovered,
13 $45 million had to be repaid to the federal
14 government. And when you go through local
15 shares, how much we got back, the state may
16 have received $15 million more from the
17 federal government for monies that were not
18 collected, with the $12.8 million from the
19 state recovery fund used by the state to
20 collect the money. That's 75 employees. And
21 the work of 283 employees, we recovered a net
22 for the state of $9.2 million.
23 This is bureaucracy at its worst.
24 And that's why it's important that we
25 streamline the system. Many of the employees
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1 that will be used in the inspector general's
2 department will be assigned from the
3 Department of Health, will be assigned from
4 the Attorney General's office, through
5 memorandums of understanding, so we're not all
6 of a sudden creating a bloated bureaucracy.
7 Rather, we're streamlining the
8 bureaucracy, because the present one that
9 exists in terms of Medicaid fraud right now is
10 not functioning properly. And that's why
11 we're doing this.
12 So you're wrong when you say we're
13 creating a new bureaucracy. We're having
14 employees that exist assigned to this office
15 with a new, up-to-date Medicaid fraud control
16 unit that will collect more dollars. Because
17 it's just not happening right now.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
19 Meier.
20 SENATOR MEIER: Thank you, Madam
21 President.
22 I've spent a considerable part of
23 my public career dealing with Medicaid, first
24 as a county executive and then here in the
25 State Senate. And it seems to me that there's
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1 a very simple and very intuitive answer as to
2 why we need to pass Senator Skelos's bill. My
3 experience in public life has been that
4 nothing much happens about anything until
5 somebody identifiable is accountable.
6 Now, here's the present structure
7 of running the Medicaid program in this state.
8 Ostensibly the Department of Health is
9 responsible for running Medicaid, but the
10 Office of Mental Hygiene, the Office of Mental
11 Retardation and Developmental Disabilities,
12 the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse
13 Services, the Office of Temporary and
14 Disability Assistance also all have roles in
15 administering the Medicaid program. And by
16 the way, while I'm thinking of it, the
17 Department of Education and the Department of
18 Correctional Services also has somewhat of a
19 role.
20 There are 57 counties in this state
21 that have a role, in addition in the City of
22 New York. The Comptroller of the State of
23 New York and the Department of Audit and
24 Control have responsibility to audit and to
25 look into the expenditure of public funds.
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1 And the Attorney General has rather broad
2 jurisdiction in terms of what he can do with
3 regard to the expenditure of public funds and,
4 in particular, has a Medicaid fraud recovery
5 unit.
6 Now, you tell me, after you
7 navigate through that alphabet soup of
8 agencies and that collection of individuals
9 and jurisdictions, who's responsible, who's
10 accountable. And the problem is, although the
11 Department of Health controls a significant
12 part of the data, they use it mostly for the
13 purpose of paying the providers.
14 What Senator Skelos has done is
15 really not at all the creation of a new
16 bureaucracy. It's not an attempt to layer
17 something more on. It is an attempt, and a
18 very good one, to get to the point -- to get
19 to the only point where anything ever gets
20 done in government, and that's where somebody
21 identifiable is accountable.
22 And that's what the inspector
23 general's office will be. That will be the
24 person with cross-jurisdictional power to
25 collect the data, review it. And it doesn't
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1 supplant the Attorney General. This includes
2 referrals to the Attorney General, it includes
3 referrals perhaps to local prosecutors.
4 This is -- Senator Skelos, this is
5 a very important bill. The General Accounting
6 Services has said perhaps 10 percent of the
7 money expended on the Medicaid program goes to
8 fraud and abuse. That would be $4.5 billion
9 in this state. Let's say they've exaggerated
10 that by a factor of ten. We're still talking
11 about $450 million.
12 This is a significant expenditure
13 of public funds that is identified year after
14 year after year in this town and in this
15 chamber as one of the most severe problems we
16 face within our budget process. It affects a
17 program that millions upon millions of
18 vulnerable New Yorkers rely upon, that our
19 health care industry relies upon.
20 We have an obligation here to bring
21 some people to the center of this debate who
22 have been long overlooked. That's the
23 patients who rely on Medicaid, and that's the
24 taxpayers who pay for it. And all this bill
25 does is say it's time for somebody that we can
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1 identify to be accountable and to be held
2 accountable.
3 And I'm going to vote for this
4 bill. And, Senator Skelos, congratulations.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
6 you, Senator.
7 Senator Volker.
8 SENATOR VOLKER: Madam President,
9 this, in my humble opinion, is the -- one of
10 the key issues of this decade.
11 And you know, it's interesting,
12 because when you're dealing with these kinds
13 of issues, you get the distinct opinion that
14 there's a reason why certain people are so
15 reluctant to get into this sort of thing.
16 It is difficult. It reminds me of
17 how difficult we were in getting the inspector
18 general for welfare many years ago, to set up
19 the inspector general for welfare. And what
20 we found out, of course, there was an enormous
21 amount of welfare fraud.
22 And when this house and the other
23 house did one of the most extensive welfare
24 reforms in the country -- and Medicaid
25 reforms, too, by the way, which has gotten
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1 very little press -- and 700,000 people ended
2 up off of welfare back in the '90s. And a lot
3 of people said, Well, that was the feds. No,
4 it wasn't the feds. We were there before the
5 federal government. This house and the other
6 house moved.
7 And one of the fascinating things
8 about it and one of the most controversial was
9 they called finger imaging. Really,
10 fingerprinting. Very controversial. Well,
11 there's a story that has really never gotten
12 much publicity about when finger imaging or
13 fingerprinting tripped in. Amazingly, within
14 about two months, a hundred thousand people
15 disappeared off the welfare rolls. Just
16 dematerialized.
17 And people said, Well, jeez, what
18 happened? And of course when they disappeared
19 from welfare, they disappeared from Medicaid
20 also.
21 Well, we know what happened. What
22 happened was that an awful lot of people were
23 fraudulent. A ton of people. And by the way,
24 as a result of that, they found thousands of
25 people who were triple-dippers,
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1 quadruple-dippers. And one famous guy, I
2 believe, in the city was a six-time dipper. I
3 don't know how you do that. I have no idea
4 what kind of programs those were.
5 And I'm only saying this because I
6 think the story here is that you've got to
7 realize that people internally that have
8 spoken to me in the criminal justice area say,
9 This is the issue, this is what you in the
10 Legislature have to deal with.
11 If you're going to deal with
12 Medicaid and if you're going to deal with the
13 real funding of Medicaid, you must deal with
14 fraud. Because there isn't even a question
15 that there's enormous fraud out there. We all
16 know it. Deep down, we all know it. Some
17 people claim it's 10 percent. Some say it's
18 15 percent. But it's big stuff.
19 Some of it is not even in this
20 state. That is, there are out-of-state people
21 and out-of-state companies that are doing it.
22 And there's all sorts of things that are
23 happening here.
24 And Senator Skelos has got on an
25 issue, very honestly -- in my budget
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1 subcommittee or conference committee, we
2 looked at this issue, and the Assembly
3 initially rejected it only because they didn't
4 know what to do with it. But this is an issue
5 that not only has this house got to deal with,
6 but the Assembly has got to deal with it.
7 And this is not a knock on the
8 Attorney General, at least from my
9 perspective. We have got to develop a
10 coordinated approach to deal with something as
11 complicated as Medicaid fraud. It's way too
12 complicated for just the Attorney General or
13 the Health Department. What has to happen is
14 you've got to find it, put it together, set up
15 a computerized system.
16 And I think, Senator, you mentioned
17 that you've got to set up a -- well, that's
18 what this is all about. Because when you
19 think about it, how else could we really do an
20 overall job? Because you need Social
21 Services, you need Health, you need the
22 Attorney General, you need local district
23 attorneys, you need a link. And the best way
24 to link that is with a separate office. We've
25 always found that. It's not that we want
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1 another bureaucracy. We don't need another
2 bureaucracy.
3 On the other hand, if you're going
4 to deal with this -- and there's a lot of
5 things, and Senator Skelos and Senator Meier
6 and myself have talked about this, about
7 incentives for local district attorneys, for
8 instance, or for local counties, to find
9 welfare fraud, that they can keep some of the
10 money and all that sort of thing. But that
11 can be coordinated by an inspector general's
12 office.
13 And so from my perspective, it just
14 seems to me that Senator Skelos has an issue
15 here that, personally, this may be as
16 important an issue as we have to deal with in
17 this entire session.
18 Because last year, by the way,
19 Senator Balboni had an issue -- and the funny
20 thing is, with all the Brennan Commission and
21 all that, he passed one of the most important
22 bills in this decade and the last decade,
23 which was the terrorism bill. And the rest of
24 the country said, Oh, my gosh, look at that
25 bill.
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1 And then we did DNA, and then we
2 did drug reform -- which was very historic, in
3 many ways, because it calmed down the people
4 that wanted to get everybody out of jail and
5 at the same time did some substantial reform.
6 My point, I think, is that people
7 are running around saying, Oh, you guys passed
8 a budget -- or all of us, guys and girls --
9 and now you're not going to go anything.
10 We're doing something. This is important.
11 The Assembly is going to do this
12 bill or a similar bill, mark my words on it,
13 because they're going to have to. And that's
14 why today is a much more historic day, in my
15 opinion, than we realize.
16 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
17 you, Senator Volker.
18 Senator Balboni.
19 SENATOR BALBONI: Thank you very
20 much, Madam President.
21 I just want to point out that
22 there's something ironic about this debate.
23 For all the time that I've been here, we have
24 always had to struggle over how we spend
25 money. And at the core of every decision,
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1 whether it was the amount of money we spent on
2 education or health care, we always had to
3 talk about what services to cut, what services
4 to create.
5 Here we have a situation in front
6 of us where we're talking about crime. That's
7 what we're talking about. And I would really
8 like to meet somebody who thinks that we
9 should perpetuate, in any way, shape or form,
10 crime or fraud. That's something we should
11 all be able to agree on.
12 And so this is one of the issues
13 that we should be jumping all over and saying,
14 absolutely, whatever program we can try to get
15 at the fraud that's in our system, that is
16 rampant in our system, we should embrace. If
17 for nothing else, as an experiment.
18 There's something ironic about
19 saying that we're worried about setting up
20 another bureaucracy when we see the costs that
21 have been recovered by other states. Because
22 that would truly lessen the burden of the
23 decisions we have to make.
24 And what I always like to do is
25 just take a step back and look at this from
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1 the context of how we're viewed by the rest of
2 the nation. We are viewed as a system that
3 spends too much money. And we can all argue
4 it's because of the age of our infrastructure,
5 it's the size of our programs, and perhaps
6 it's a little bit of administrative costs in
7 those. But there's also fraud.
8 If you need any better evidence,
9 check out the newspaper last week that talked
10 about private insurance companies that did
11 rate reductions in automobile insurance. All
12 the major companies had between 5 and
13 6 percent reductions, and there were several
14 factors attributed to that reduction. But one
15 of those factors were the aggressive fraud
16 prosecutions by the private companies.
17 Ladies and gentlemen, just talk to
18 any of the district attorneys in the city,
19 around the state, ask them what's happening in
20 their communities. And they'll tell you,
21 there are mills set up that do nothing but
22 work through fraud.
23 It's a problem. We should have all
24 of the tools in our arsenal that are necessary
25 and possible to try to recover as much money
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1 as possible. Because it truly is a cruel
2 thing to do to the people we represent and
3 say: You know what, we want to give you the
4 health care you deserve and you need, but
5 we're also not going to take this step and
6 really root out all the fraud.
7 And the benefit of this is every
8 time you go and prosecute, every time you use
9 the force of government to go after fraud, the
10 money will be returned to the taxpayers and to
11 the people who use the system. That is our
12 first mandate in any type of system of this
13 size, complexity and importance.
14 Thank you, Madam President.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
16 you, Senator Balboni.
17 Senator Johnson.
18 SENATOR JOHNSON: Madam
19 President, many years ago -- I've been here a
20 while -- I was chairman of the Social Services
21 Committee. And at that time there was a
22 Channel 2 or Channel 4 in New York City that
23 did an expose on Medicaid fraud showing the
24 doctor's office, the lawyer's office, the
25 pharmacist, the whole racket and how it
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1 worked. The guy who gives the sonograms,
2 every little provider, criminal-intented
3 provider who was in the business of giving
4 away our money, stealing our money.
5 I talked to the Health Department
6 at the time. Oh, they were oblivious to it:
7 Oh, really? Well, we didn't know anything
8 about that. Oh, really, you didn't? Well, I
9 got them a copy of the videotape and I said,
10 Come watch a videotape. Now, do something
11 about it.
12 Now, that was maybe 15 years ago.
13 I've been out of the Social Services Committee
14 for a long while. And I guess in the
15 meanwhile they've gone back to the same old
16 practice and the people who got caught then
17 are gone or out of the business. But the
18 entrepreneurial spirit of the American
19 people -- and some non-American people in this
20 country -- apparently is still working and
21 still creating more opportunity for fraud.
22 So I say I mentioned that, and now
23 that -- about that time the Medicaid
24 expenditures were perhaps what I'm saying
25 25 -- let me read my own notes -- probably,
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1 yes, 25 percent of the present amount of
2 Medicaid expenditures which are now taking
3 place. At that time, Medicaid expenditures
4 were the second largest item of our budget
5 behind school aid.
6 As you all know, now school aid has
7 gone up to some considerable extent, and
8 Medicaid is approximately three times the
9 amount of school aid.
10 Now, during this recent budget,
11 you're all aware of being lobbied by your
12 counties. Most everybody got lobbied. County
13 executives, county boards, they need more
14 money for Medicaid, it's too expensive, they
15 can't carry the load. Why did it triple, why
16 is it triple what it was eight or 10 years
17 ago? Not only because we have more people on
18 it and the practices are more expensive, but
19 because of fraud.
20 And there was recently a report,
21 and Dean probably knows who wrote the report,
22 that approximately 10 to 30 percent of our
23 expenditures are fraudulent. When you ask why
24 does Texas or California, with more people on
25 Medicaid, spend a lot less money, it's because
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1 fraud is a big part of the picture. And
2 everybody knows it.
3 And if you weren't lobbied by your
4 county executives about Medicaid and something
5 needs to be done about it, then you must have
6 been sleeping, because they lobbied everybody.
7 And all they said was, Give us more money.
8 And at that time, during the
9 budget, I said, We can't just give them more
10 money, we've got to find out where that money
11 is going. And if these fraud artists are at
12 it again, then we have to nab them.
13 And that's why this bill was
14 developed, to deal with the problem. Not of
15 just giving more money to the counties from
16 some other necessary quarter in the state or
17 raising taxes in the state to keep giving
18 those people money, but to find out who are
19 these people taking it and what are we doing
20 about those people, and then put them away.
21 And this bill is going to help you
22 do that. And I think we should all be very
23 aware of the problem we had in this last
24 budget with Medicaid and know this is part of
25 the solution to the problem.
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1 Thank you.
2 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
3 you, Senator Johnson.
4 Senator Savino.
5 SENATOR SAVINO: Thank you, Madam
6 President.
7 I just want to -- I want to clear
8 up a misinterpretation. When I rose before, I
9 asked a simple question: What will we do
10 differently in this new agency that we're not
11 doing now? And if other states are doing a
12 better job at fraud collection, what are they
13 doing differently and how can we improve?
14 I did not get an answer to that
15 question, and for that reason I felt that I
16 should not support this bill. But I've heard
17 an awful lot of discussion here, and I've
18 heard people talk about the importance of
19 Medicaid fraud detection and --
20 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
21 Skelos.
22 SENATOR SKELOS: If Senator
23 Savino would yield, I --
24 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
25 you.
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1 Senator Savino, will you yield?
2 SENATOR SAVINO: Sure.
3 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
4 you.
5 Senator Skelos.
6 SENATOR SKELOS: I believe I
7 answered that question when I indicated to you
8 that the District of Columbia has a Medicaid
9 inspector general. And I think I gave you the
10 statistics in terms of how successful their
11 collection efforts are as compared to New York
12 State.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
14 you.
15 Senator Savino.
16 SENATOR SAVINO: The question was
17 had there been an evaluation -- Madam
18 President, through you -- has there been an
19 evaluation of the current procedures and
20 practices in place in the Medicaid fraud
21 collection unit, and are there deficiencies
22 that have been detected and is there any
23 attempt to fix them. That was the question.
24 But you answered it in the way that
25 you felt was sufficient. I did not feel that
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1 I got a sufficient explanation. But I want to
2 just state that with --
3 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
4 Skelos, why do you rise?
5 Sorry. Senator Savino.
6 SENATOR SAVINO: Thank you.
7 I want to state for the record,
8 because a lot has been bandied about about the
9 importance of Medicaid fraud collection and
10 even welfare fraud collection, I actually have
11 a record on that.
12 In 1996, as a representative of the
13 social service employees union representing
14 the entire social service system in New York
15 City in the public sector, I was involved in
16 the creation -- after the passage of the
17 Welfare Reform Act of 1995, I was involved in
18 the creation of the eligibility verification
19 review unit in the Department of Welfare in
20 New York City's Human Resource Administration,
21 recognizing that one of the principles of
22 welfare reform was detected fraud, rooting it
23 out, and decreasing fraud in the New York City
24 public welfare system.
25 What we did, through our
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1 cooperative effort with Mayor Giuliani, who
2 was the mayor at the time --
3 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
4 Padavan.
5 SENATOR SAVINO: May I continue,
6 Madam President?
7 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: I'm
8 sorry.
9 SENATOR SAVINO: Mayor Giuliani
10 was the mayor of the City of New York at the
11 time; Jason Turner was his new welfare
12 commissioner. We took a very long look at the
13 current procedures in place with respect to
14 welfare fraud investigation, Medicaid fraud
15 investigation, child welfare fraud
16 investigation, the Office of Child Support
17 Enforcement, and every other agency that
18 worked within HRA.
19 We recognized where the
20 deficiencies were, we created a new system and
21 a new division within the current agency.
22 They improved their fraud investigation
23 techniques. They separated the services of
24 fraud investigators from caseworkers,
25 recognizing that oftentimes caseworkers can
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1 become sympathetic to their clients and
2 overlook issues that would be considered
3 fraud. We created a new title of fraud
4 investigators, a new chain of command. They
5 reported directly to the commissioner's
6 office. And as a result of that, in five
7 years we cut welfare fraud in New York City in
8 half.
9 We recognized the deficiencies, we
10 improved it, and we did not do that by
11 creating another agency.
12 So my suggestion was that we look
13 at the current system, figure out what's
14 wrong, and determine whether or not we can fix
15 it in its current setting before we create
16 another agency and/or simply a new title or
17 someone else that they report to.
18 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
19 you, Senator Savino.
20 Senator Krueger.
21 SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER: Thank you.
22 On the bill, Madam President.
23 I've also been listening to the
24 debate. No one, I'm sure, in this house
25 disagrees with the idea that we should do
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1 whatever we can to improve the system of our
2 programs, that we should root out fraud, that
3 we should not in any way excuse any kind of
4 fraud.
5 But I share my colleague Senator
6 Savino's both past experience in New York City
7 and her concern that this bill isn't going get
8 us there. I think her questions were
9 legitimate questions. How do we look at best
10 practice from other states and see if we can
11 replicate them here? And I don't believe that
12 Senator Skelos would disagree with me. We
13 want to replicate best practice.
14 My concern around this bill is that
15 we're actually creating a public benefit
16 corporation. We're taking responsibilities or
17 a portion of responsibilities that ought to be
18 state government's -- to evaluate the
19 operation of programs and to, in fact, root
20 out fraud, stop it and prosecute it -- and
21 we're moving it into a model that, if
22 anything, we're learning in this state is not
23 necessarily part of the solution but in many
24 cases part of the problem: off-budget
25 corporations and authorities.
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1 And so while I don't disagree with
2 the goal of my colleagues on either side of
3 this chamber that we want to decrease the cost
4 of fraud in the Medicaid program, I am not
5 convinced that a bill that creates a new
6 off-budget public corporation that then does
7 RFPs without coordination with the agencies
8 right now that have direct responsibility --
9 the Department of Health and the Attorney
10 General's office -- for following through on
11 investigations and prosecutions, I'm not at
12 all convinced that this is the right direction
13 to go, even though I have no disagreement with
14 Senator Skelos or my other colleagues who have
15 spoken here today that we want to save the
16 money in the Medicaid system to be used for
17 actual health care and not fraud.
18 But I also must rise, when Senator
19 Volker raised his examples on welfare fraud,
20 something I have raised before. There can be
21 fraud in every program in the history of
22 government. And no doubt there has been fraud
23 in every program in the history of government.
24 But in fact, his data on welfare fraud was
25 wrong. When we created a finger-imaging
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1 system in this state, there were only a couple
2 of hundred cases of duplicative fingerprints
3 in the system. And while there was an initial
4 hundred thousand New Yorkers who failed to
5 show up to be fingerprinted over the course of
6 months after fingerprinting was implemented,
7 the vast majority came into the system.
8 Because while there is fraud in
9 welfare, as there is fraud in every other
10 system, there really wasn't a fraud problem
11 with people attempting to receive benefits
12 under multiple IDs, not in any significant
13 statistical way.
14 I specifically remember a group of
15 homeless men, I believe who there were 80 of
16 them, who were eligible for or receiving
17 public benefits, both in Newark, New Jersey,
18 coming across the PATH train to New York and
19 in fact were, quote, unquote, double-dipping
20 to, I think, the tune of an additional $80 per
21 month per person.
22 The fact is, welfare fraud you
23 can't make a lot of money on. Medicaid fraud,
24 I think it's important for today's debate to
25 note, you can, but only with providers. That
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1 Medicaid fraud should not be callously
2 discussed as catching individuals who are
3 ripping off the Medicaid system for cash
4 value.
5 Medicaid fraud is double-dipping by
6 medical institutions by billing for services
7 that were not needed, by billing for services
8 that were never provided -- perhaps worse,
9 billing for services that weren't needed but
10 were provided. We're talking about
11 skyrocketing costs in prescription drugs and
12 patterns of abuse there that almost always
13 involve large ring operations involving
14 prescription-writing operations,
15 pharmaceutical companies themselves.
16 When you're talking about Medicaid
17 fraud, you are talking about large
18 institutional fraud. Which is an argument to
19 go forward, go forward with the right model.
20 So again, it is not my opposition
21 to taking a look at what we do with Medicaid
22 fraud. I don't think this is the right way to
23 go. I hope we'll sit down and reevaluate
24 this. I'd be happy to work with my colleagues
25 on the Republican side to come up with looking
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1 at best practices from around the country.
2 And again, it's not just saying
3 we're not doing the right thing and changing
4 it; it's actually looking at what works more
5 effectively and going down that road.
6 I know that Attorney General
7 Spitzer has actually called on this house to
8 pass a bill, I believe sponsored by Senator
9 Farley, if I am correct -- just trying to find
10 the number of Senator Farley's bill -- which
11 would give the Attorney General much greater
12 power to in fact follow through on
13 investigations of fraud. I believe it is --
14 excuse me, it is the New York State False
15 Claims Act, sponsored by Senator Farley.
16 And I hope that we might go forward
17 and look at that bill and other proposals that
18 have been made to in fact improve our ability
19 to stop Medicaid fraud, to collect money that
20 is wrongly being distributed, and to reinvest
21 that in the kinds of programs that we know we
22 need and never have the funding for.
23 So I'll be voting no.
24 Thank you, Madam President.
25 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
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1 you, Senator Krueger.
2 Senator Padavan.
3 SENATOR PADAVAN: Thank you,
4 Madam President.
5 I think, Senator Krueger, when you
6 emphasize the fact that providers are a big
7 part of this problem, you in effect tell
8 Senator Skelos he's on the right track.
9 Those providers who run the full
10 gamut, as you described, and accurately so,
11 whether they be Medicaid providers of
12 transportation or drug operations or hospitals
13 or clinics -- Medicaid bills, common term --
14 they are operated in a very sophisticated
15 manner. It takes a very sophisticated,
16 focused apparatus to ferret them out.
17 And from time to time we pick up
18 the newspaper and we read stories where some
19 have been found and where millions of dollars
20 have been recovered. But we know, when we
21 read those stories, that we're talking about
22 the top of the iceberg. And to really get
23 down to where the big numbers are, an awful
24 lot of effort and energy has to be expended,
25 as well as technical expertise.
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1 Now, this is not a new issue. Back
2 in 1993 we had a series of hearings, five in
3 number, dealing with issues of illegal
4 immigration. One of those hearings was
5 dedicated to public assistance and Medicaid
6 and other social services. One of the most
7 important presenters at that hearing was the
8 welfare inspector general, whose name was
9 Elmer Toro. Very capable individual. And he
10 explained to us not only the issue of welfare
11 fraud among illegal immigrants and
12 undocumented aliens, but rampant Medicaid
13 fraud.
14 And I'm just going to read one
15 sentence from his testimony. "I strongly
16 believe that many of those illegal aliens
17 arriving from Spanish-speaking countries are
18 in possession of fraudulent identification. A
19 full assortment of social services and public
20 assistance benefits are at their disposal."
21 Now, that hasn't changed. At that
22 point in time, INS told us that there were
23 roughly a half a million illegal immigrants in
24 the metropolitan New York City area. Today,
25 that figure, by the same source, is in excess
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1 of 700,000 -- I'm sorry, 500,000, 700,000 --
2 people in the metropolitan area who are
3 identified as illegal immigrants. Therefore,
4 the magnitude of the problem that existed in
5 1992 that Elmer Toro was talking about is even
6 greater today.
7 Now, recently Senator Skelos and I
8 met with the welfare inspector general who
9 serves in that capacity today. And during the
10 course of our meeting with him, and he
11 providing us with some insights, he made it
12 clear that the current configuration that
13 exists today between the Health Department,
14 Social Services and other agencies is
15 inadequate to deal with the magnitude of
16 Medicaid fraud. Both again, as you said
17 before, on the part of the providers and on
18 the part of recipients.
19 Document fraud is rampant.
20 Commissioner Martinez of the Office of Motor
21 Vehicles recently determined that fact when he
22 had people -- when he had Social Security
23 numbers checked and found that there were
24 thousands of them, thousands of them in this
25 state that had more than one Social Security
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1 number and more than one driver's license.
2 And they're able to do that because
3 you can go on streets in the city of New York
4 and get a phony birth certificate, a phony
5 Social Security card. You can even get a
6 phony green card at very minimal cost. And
7 they're doing it. And because of technology,
8 they're very, very sophisticated documents.
9 Hard to tell the real ones from the bad ones.
10 So the fact that we would have
11 someone who would be dedicated, with all the
12 resources necessary, bringing together what is
13 available today both in terms of personnel --
14 we do have technology that we didn't have back
15 in '93 -- and using those resources to not
16 hurt the people who are generally in need of
17 and deserving of health care, but those who
18 are ripping off the State of New York and, in
19 so doing, ripping off every citizen in the
20 State of New York.
21 Imagine what we could do with that
22 $4 billion or $5 billion, whatever the figure
23 might be, dealing just with education, one of
24 our most difficult issues today. And it's out
25 there to be obtained without hurting anybody
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1 who is really entitled to the kind of
2 assistance that Medicaid provides.
3 I think we're on the right track
4 here. I know we're on the right track. We
5 had a welfare inspector general 13 years ago,
6 and a welfare inspector general today who
7 works in this field all the time, tell us that
8 we have a serious problem. And the difference
9 between the two is it's gotten worse, not
10 better, despite all our best efforts.
11 Now, you can be on Medicaid without
12 being on welfare, and a significant percentage
13 of Medicaid recipients are not on welfare. So
14 therefore, when you weed out welfare fraud,
15 you're not taking care of them, you're not
16 dealing with that population.
17 We had a task force, as you all
18 know, that worked diligently for over six
19 months, chaired by two of our colleagues.
20 Part of that responsibility was dealing with
21 hospital administrators. And when we met with
22 them in conferences and in conclaves, one of
23 the issues frequently raised is: Tell me, how
24 much Medicaid fraud do you think is going on
25 in your hospital? And the answer is
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1 uniformly: A lot.
2 "What can you about it?" "Nothing.
3 If they arrive at our doors with a Medicaid
4 card, we can't do anything about that. You
5 have to get at the problem before they get the
6 Medicaid card. And if they got it, somebody
7 in the state government has got to deal with
8 it if they got it fraudulently and are using
9 it in that manner."
10 So no matter where you turn in the
11 health care industry, or anywhere you turn in
12 government, and you talk with people who have
13 expertise and knowledge and are working on a
14 day-to-day basis, you hear the same story.
15 It's an enormous problem. And frankly, the
16 bulk of it is in New York City. It's a fact.
17 We can't ignore that.
18 Now, in the City of New York we
19 have 11 hospitals owned by the city, operated
20 by the Health and Hospital Corporation. We
21 talked to them too. "Do you go after Medicaid
22 fraud?" "Well, no, not really." "Well, why
23 not?" "Well, we don't have the ability, the
24 resources, or the authority."
25 "Also, if we find someone who's
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1 receiving Medicaid benefits fraudulently, if
2 that happened to be the case, and they're
3 removed from Medicaid and they're an illegal
4 immigrant, you've got to provide health care
5 anyhow. However, not to the same extent. But
6 then we pay for that out of our own pockets a
7 hundred percent, and the state and the federal
8 government contribute nothing."
9 There's no incentive, absolutely
10 none whatsoever, by hospitals to go after
11 people who they can bill under Medicaid. And
12 we have to therefore assume that
13 responsibility. If it's not going to be done
14 at that level, we have to do it at the state
15 level.
16 And so Senator Skelos' bill and all
17 the things that other members have spoken to
18 are right on the mark. This is long overdue.
19 We should have done it a decade ago. But now
20 is the time to do it, and to do it quickly.
21 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
22 you, Senator Padavan.
23 Senator Montgomery.
24 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Yes, Madam
25 President. I would like to just be on record
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1 and very clear that no one on this side, I
2 don't believe, is saying that we don't agree
3 absolutely a hundred percent with what Senator
4 Skelos, his ultimate aim with the legislation.
5 And that is to reduce Medicaid fraud,
6 hopefully, and certainly to recover as much as
7 we can from those who are using it
8 fraudulently.
9 Certainly for my district and for
10 me, as a representative of the people in the
11 part of the city where I am, Medicaid fraud is
12 a huge problem. It is a disgrace, because it
13 hurts the people that I represent, a lot of
14 them. And so I resent it very much and I'm
15 very much in favor of fighting it.
16 I do, however -- I would like to
17 propose that what we're creating is just what
18 Senator Savino has spoken of, and that is
19 another layer of bureaucracy. I only wish
20 that we would look to enhance and empower the
21 Office of the Attorney General, who will
22 ultimately be responsible, we think, to
23 prosecute anyone who is guilty of Medicaid
24 fraud. And so therefore, in the end, that
25 person is the one who we will look to to deal
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1 with this issue in the last and final
2 resolution.
3 So why do we want to create another
4 bureaucracy, another bureaucrat, another level
5 of government which will conduct and supervise
6 investigations, which will initiate civil
7 suits to recover monies, to make information
8 and evidence related to fraud available to law
9 enforcement, to grant immunity? All of these
10 are good things, but we already have that
11 power vested in the Office of the Attorney
12 General.
13 But in addition to all of these
14 things that we have listed here as part of
15 this legislation, we have the authority to
16 prosecute. And that, I think, is the ultimate
17 authority and the ultimate resolution.
18 And so, yes, let it be very known
19 and clear that I am adamantly opposed to any
20 kind of Medicaid fraud, because it hurts my
21 constituents. It hurts the elderly in my
22 district, it hurts the students in my
23 district. We don't have school based health
24 care in my district for teenagers --
25 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
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1 Winner, why do you rise?
2 Excuse me, Senator Montgomery.
3 SENATOR WINNER: Will the Senator
4 yield.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
6 Montgomery, will you yield for a question?
7 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Yes, I will.
8 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
9 you. The Senator yields.
10 SENATOR WINNER: Senator, I
11 listened with great interest to your
12 explanation that all of these powers currently
13 exist and are vested within the Attorney
14 General.
15 I just ask the obvious question,
16 that what has he been doing all this time with
17 regard to collecting money? If in fact he has
18 all these powers, and you acknowledge that all
19 this fraud exists, and so does all of the
20 members of the Senate on your side of the
21 aisle, that the fraud is there, yet we don't
22 really need to do anything else because why
23 create another bureaucracy?
24 It appears that the taxpayers are
25 crying out for the Attorney General to do
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1 something about this and perhaps help out in
2 saving them some money in this program.
3 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Madam
4 President, through you.
5 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
6 Montgomery.
7 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: With all due
8 respect to my colleague, the record that I
9 have here is that in one year we recovered
10 $64 million, $65 million in Medicaid. That's
11 just in one year.
12 And certainly over the years there
13 are a number of instances and cases that I'm
14 aware of where millions of dollars have been
15 recovered because of the activity of the AG's
16 office.
17 Now, obviously, that is not enough,
18 I grant you. I would like to see more.
19 However, I think that it is a mistake to say
20 that we have not -- the Attorney General's
21 Office has not been involved and engaged in
22 recovering, both the current attorney general
23 as well as the prior attorney general, one of
24 them being a Republican, the other one being a
25 Democrat.
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1 But nonetheless, both attorneys
2 general have been very much involved in
3 trying -- attempting to recover funds that
4 were fraudulently received through Medicaid.
5 SENATOR WINNER: Would the
6 Senator yield.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
8 you.
9 Senator Montgomery, will you yield
10 for another question?
11 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Yes.
12 SENATOR WINNER: Senator, you
13 know, in all due respect, it appears that
14 you're arguing more in favor of this
15 legislation than arguing in opposition to it.
16 You make the statement that the
17 Attorney General has made the successful
18 recovery of $60 million, of which $30 million
19 of which was not done by his office.
20 In fact, if the only amount of
21 recovery that was done in the entire state was
22 $30 million -- of which, Senator Skelos has
23 accurately pointed out, is 72 cents recovered
24 for every dollar expended -- it would appear
25 that the Attorney General has done such a
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1 horrible job here, in fact, that the taxpayers
2 have been so adversely impacted by his
3 performance that you are in fact making the
4 case for why it should be entirely changed
5 such that we have now an accountable inspector
6 general that will in fact produce results
7 rather than the woeful job that the state's
8 Attorney General has done so far to protect
9 the taxpayers.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
11 Montgomery.
12 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Madam
13 President, in answer to my colleague, an
14 attempt to answer, at least certainly to
15 reiterate my position, I am in favor of an
16 aggressive move to recover funds that were
17 fraudulently received through the Medicaid
18 program. I wanted to make that very clear.
19 However, the point of departure for
20 me, and I believe some of the other colleagues
21 on this side of the aisle, is with the way in
22 which Senator Skelos has decided and
23 determined that this is the way that we should
24 go in order to recoup those funds.
25 He proposes to establish a new and
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1 different bureaucracy. What we are saying is
2 we would like to have the Attorney General --
3 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
4 Skelos, why do you rise?
5 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: -- fulfill
6 that role. And if we are going to make any
7 changes, we should --
8 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Excuse
9 me, Senator Montgomery. Excuse me just a
10 moment.
11 Senator Skelos, why do you rise?
12 SENATOR SKELOS: Would Senator
13 Montgomery yield.
14 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Yes, sure.
15 SENATOR SKELOS: Senator
16 Montgomery, do you understand how a group or
17 an entity can be certified by the federal
18 government in order to qualify for the federal
19 funding for Medicaid fraud collection money?
20 There are three ways. The system
21 that exists right now, which is not working.
22 That's one. System number two, where the
23 Attorney General is not involved at all. And
24 system number three is the model that we've
25 created in this legislation.
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1 Those are the only three ways that
2 the federal government will certify a state
3 for Medicaid fraud collection dollars. Okay?
4 The only three ways.
5 So if the one way is not working --
6 and I should point out that in this
7 legislation we seriously looked and changed
8 our original bill based upon the memo of
9 opposition from the Attorney General. We made
10 the changes to meet his concerns.
11 As of right now, I do not have a
12 memo in opposition from the Attorney General.
13 I do have a memo in support by the Association
14 of Counties that will say -- that says the old
15 system is not working and this new
16 legislation, the new system that we're
17 establishing, that we've discussed with the
18 Department of Health and Human Services, is a
19 better way to go in order to save the state
20 money -- the federal government too -- the
21 state and the localities, and to make sure
22 that the money is there to provide the
23 services for my constituents and your
24 constituents that need Medicaid assistance.
25 So these are the three types of
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1 units that can be established that will be
2 certified by the federal government.
3 Again, I want to point out that I
4 had hoped at the beginning that this would not
5 be a finger-pointing exercise at either the
6 Attorney General or at us, that we want to
7 create a bureaucracy. That's not the case.
8 The problem right now is that the
9 system as it exists is not working. And if
10 you put in more money the way it is now, the
11 72 cents that you collect is going to become
12 more and more of a net loss to taxpayers of
13 the State of New York.
14 Now -- and again, I hoped we
15 wouldn't get into this. The Attorney
16 General's report that came out for 2004 -- and
17 I think some of the information came out, just
18 coincidentally, on the day we were having a
19 press conference concerning our Medicaid fraud
20 legislation.
21 In 2004, 187 civil and criminal
22 cases were completed, 139 civil recoveries
23 with the responsibility of the Department of
24 Health. Criminal restitutions, which were the
25 responsibility of the Attorney General,
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1 constituted $8.2 million ordered and
2 $5.6 million actually collected in 2004.
3 It's not working. And that's why I
4 think that we should emphasize the strengths
5 of the Health Department data collection and
6 the inspector general to do the investigation,
7 and then say to the Attorney General: Here,
8 we're going to work with you. This is what
9 we've found. You go out and do what you do
10 best and prosecute.
11 The inspector general cannot
12 prosecute criminal cases. They can make
13 referrals to the Attorney General, and they
14 work out a process with the local district
15 attorneys, help them with funding and
16 individuals to help them prosecute.
17 So it really does streamline the
18 system. It does not create a new bureaucracy,
19 because as I mentioned to Senator Savino
20 before, there are also individuals that are
21 brought together from either the Health
22 Department, assigned from the Health
23 Department, or the AG's office to this
24 inspector general's office.
25 So really what it is is a
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1 coordinated effort to try something new, to
2 reform the system that's dysfunctional right
3 now, and to make sure that the people of the
4 State of New York, their hard-earned tax
5 dollars are not wasted and that your
6 constituents and my constituents, as I said
7 before, that need Medicaid assistance, the
8 money will be there for them and that the only
9 answer to the growing cost will not be cut
10 programs, cut programs, cut programs.
11 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
12 you.
13 Senator Montgomery.
14 SENATOR MONTGOMERY: Madam
15 President, I think the question intended was
16 what would I do, do I agree with -- let me
17 just say the areas where I certainly agree
18 with Senator Skelos, since he's asking me what
19 would I propose.
20 I propose that there are two places
21 where we agree and we should go. This should
22 not be a partisan finger-pointing
23 one-upsmanship, you know, debate. It is
24 within all our interests that this process
25 takes place and that it's improved. So we
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1 agree on that.
2 I agree also, as Senator Skelos has
3 said, it is the Attorney General who has the
4 ultimate authority to do the prosecutorial
5 aspect. So I would hope and propose that we
6 could in fact sit down with the Attorney
7 General and with the Department of Health and
8 with all of the other entities and come up
9 with a plan for in fact making this work,
10 making it possible, making it an operation
11 within the Attorney General's Office -- no
12 matter who that attorney general may be, from
13 whatever party -- that the main interest and
14 focus should be the process of aggressively
15 going after and recouping funds that were
16 fraudulently received through the Medicaid
17 program.
18 So certainly there are some areas
19 that we agree on. There's, I believe, a
20 possibility of working out a program that we
21 can all feel comfortable with and agree with
22 and go with and hope that it makes a
23 difference in this process.
24 So, Senator Skelos, I hope that we
25 can come to that point.
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1 Thank you, Madam President.
2 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
3 Skelos.
4 SENATOR SKELOS: Madam President,
5 if I could comment on Senator Montgomery's
6 good words. I mean, good recommendations.
7 During the budget process, we
8 sought to have more funding go to the Attorney
9 General's office for this. It was refused.
10 We also asked for an appointment for the
11 Attorney General and the Department of Health
12 people to meet with us. The Department of
13 Health people were willing to do it; the
14 Attorney General's office refused to come and
15 meet with us.
16 So again, this legislation now has
17 grown out of the recommendations that the
18 Attorney General made in opposition to the
19 first bill, the Department of Health and Human
20 Services, discussing it with numerous experts
21 in this area far better than I am in coming up
22 with an alternative model, one out of the
23 three that we're allowed to go back to
24 Washington to get certified. Because the
25 model right now is just not working.
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1 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
2 you.
3 Senator Onorato.
4 SENATOR ONORATO: Madam
5 President, will Senator Skelos yield to a
6 question.
7 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
8 Skelos, will you yield for a question?
9 SENATOR ONORATO: Senator Skelos,
10 you know that I'm going to be supporting this
11 bill. But you just made a remark about the
12 process, when we were going through the budget
13 process, that the Attorney General didn't want
14 to support anything.
15 Now we're coming up with another
16 process of investigating fraud. Where is the
17 money coming from in this bill to address that
18 particular problem?
19 SENATOR SKELOS: Let me explain
20 to you. There is presently, right now, in the
21 budget $1 million of Senate money to start the
22 process going.
23 What we do is -- what we have done
24 is we have, under this legislation, which
25 would become effective immediately, the
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1 Governor would immediately have to -- would
2 have to go for certification to the federal
3 government within 30 days, and the board would
4 be appointed.
5 Now, let me just go into the board
6 appointment, because Senator Krueger talked
7 about not liking the idea of public benefit
8 corporations.
9 The reason why we do it this way is
10 because we truly want an independent board.
11 And to show our desire to do so, we want to
12 make the inspector general, number one, that
13 one person truly responsible. Rather than
14 some bureaucracy that is not necessarily
15 responsible to anybody.
16 The board: two appointed by the
17 Governor, two by the Majority Leader, two by
18 the Speaker, and one each by the respective
19 Minority Leaders. So we want the minority of
20 both conferences to be involved in the
21 selection process.
22 The qualifications -- I mean, these
23 are tough qualifications. The -- well, number
24 one, there will be post-audit supervision by
25 the Comptroller of the state. So I think
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1 that's critically important to point out.
2 The Medicaid inspector general,
3 prior to his or her appointment, at least ten
4 years of experience in auditing or law
5 enforcement or investigation or in prosecuting
6 or aiding in the prosecution of fraud.
7 The board members, ten years of
8 experience. Plus we preclude individuals from
9 either being on the board or serving as
10 inspector general if they have held certain
11 political positions for a period of, I
12 believe, five years or if they have been one
13 of your employees or my employees within the
14 past five years.
15 So we truly want, within this
16 public benefit corporation, an independent
17 board selected by everybody and an inspector
18 general that will have to produce for the
19 people of the State of New York. Because also
20 included within the legislation is that they
21 have to report to the Governor, to the
22 majorities and the minorities in both houses
23 at least once a year on how they are
24 progressing.
25 So we've put the million dollars
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1 there. We can start the process. And if we
2 start collecting the money, it will fund
3 itself eventually.
4 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
5 you, Senator.
6 Is there any other Senator wishing
7 to be heard?
8 The debate is closed.
9 The Secretary will ring the bell.
10 Read the last section.
11 THE SECRETARY: Section 3. This
12 act shall take effect immediately.
13 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Call
14 the roll.
15 (The Secretary called the roll.)
16 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: The
17 Secretary will announce the results.
18 THE SECRETARY: Those recorded in
19 the negative on Calendar Number 441 are
20 Senators Andrews, Duane, Gonzalez, L. Krueger,
21 Montgomery, Parker, Paterson, Sabini, Savino,
22 Schneiderman, Serrano, A. Smith and Stavisky.
23 Ayes, 45. Nays, 13.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: The
25 bill is passed.
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1 The Secretary will continue to
2 read.
3 THE SECRETARY: Calendar Number
4 452, by Senator Volker, Senate Print 1539, an
5 act to amend the Civil Practice Law and Rules.
6 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN:
7 Explanation.
8 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Senator
9 Volker.
10 SENATOR VOLKER: Madam President,
11 this is a bill that has passed this house on a
12 number of occasions.
13 Ironically, many years ago -- and
14 Harvey Weisenberg and I have sponsored this
15 bill for some time -- the bill initially was a
16 much broader bill and was whittled down after
17 we came to an agreement between both houses
18 and the Governor. Unfortunately, the
19 communication got mixed up in the delivery,
20 and it got vetoed. So ever since then, we've
21 been trying to get this bill passed.
22 And what it is is, as I was
23 explaining to my good friend in front of me
24 here, this is really not much of a problem
25 upstate, because most police officers will
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1 talk to lawyers. But there's something in
2 downstate New York, apparently a lot of the
3 law enforcement people, for one way or
4 another, feel more comfortable with getting
5 advice from union officials.
6 And there have been a number of
7 strange situations, from what I understand,
8 where there has been an attempt -- and most of
9 these are not criminal issues, these are
10 bargaining issues. And so what has happened
11 is that the -- there has been a request in
12 this bill to deal with confidential
13 communications with an elected union official
14 only.
15 And what it basically means is --
16 it has no criminal impact at all. What it
17 means is that if the police officer asks for
18 advice from a union official and discusses it
19 with him, then that communication cannot be
20 obtained by, in effect, the City or Long
21 Island or whoever it is, and the communication
22 with that elected official is privileged.
23 Go ahead.
24 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN:
25 Explanation satisfactory.
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1 (Laughter.)
2 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
3 you, Senator Schneiderman.
4 SENATOR SCHNEIDERMAN: Very
5 briefly on the bill, Madam President. I would
6 like to incorporate by reference my remarks
7 last year.
8 The problem with this bill, quite
9 clearly, is that it's like one of those little
10 kid's toys that hits a speed bump; it just
11 can't get over it. There's no momentum to do
12 it. There's not a perception that this needs
13 to be done.
14 It essentially elevates a union
15 official to the status of a professional, like
16 a doctor or lawyer, with whom communication is
17 already confidential.
18 And the problem, I think, really at
19 this point -- and times change. And when you
20 first started introducing this bill and it got
21 vetoed by accident, the sense of the
22 relationship of the police to the public in
23 New York City was somewhat different.
24 I think the problem we have now is
25 there's a strong impression out there that
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1 this creates some special legal status for the
2 police, unlike anyone else, and gives them
3 special privileges that are denied to others.
4 The official duties, as are defined
5 here, would mean that a union official in fact
6 cannot have this special privilege apply if
7 they're talking to a police officer about
8 issues related to collective bargaining, wages
9 and those things.
10 So the problem we have here, I
11 think, is that the bill is actually losing
12 momentum. And if there is a good reason to do
13 this, we're going to have to take a different
14 approach. Maybe there needs to be a hearing
15 to bring the issue out into the fore, if this
16 really is a problem that police officers won't
17 talk to lawyers and aren't getting
18 representation. Because right now I feel like
19 it's losing support as we move forward.
20 I don't know that there is a reason
21 for it right now. I'm going to vote no just
22 because I don't think we need to create a new
23 privilege. I don't believe that this is
24 something that is impeding law enforcement
25 officers, and I don't know why they should be
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1 put in a special category.
2 But politically, if there is a
3 problem here, we'd all like to address it and
4 move past this sort of the perpetual one-house
5 status of the piece of legislation.
6 So I would encourage the sponsor
7 that maybe a hearing -- and we'd welcome you
8 to New York City, if that's where the problem
9 is. We'll have a nice hearing down there and
10 see if we can get out facts that indicate the
11 need for this legislation.
12 But in the absence of that, I will
13 vote no.
14 Thank you, Madam President.
15 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
16 you, Senator Schneiderman.
17 Is there any Senator wishing to be
18 heard?
19 The debate is closed.
20 The Secretary will ring the bell.
21 Read the last section.
22 THE SECRETARY: Section 2. This
23 act shall take effect immediately.
24 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Call
25 the roll.
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1 (The Secretary called the roll.)
2 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: The
3 Secretary will announce the results.
4 THE SECRETARY: Those recorded in
5 the negative on Calendar Number 452 are
6 Senators Andrews, Brown, DeFrancisco, Duane,
7 L. Krueger, Montgomery, Parker, Paterson,
8 Schneiderman, Serrano, A. Smith and Stavisky.
9 Ayes, 46. Nays, 12.
10 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: The
11 bill is passed.
12 Senator Skelos, that completes the
13 controversial reading of the calendar.
14 SENATOR SKELOS: Madam President,
15 is there any housekeeping at the desk?
16 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: No,
17 there is not, Senator Skelos.
18 SENATOR SKELOS: There being no
19 further business to come before the Senate, I
20 move we stand adjourned until Tuesday,
21 May 3rd, at 3:00 p.m.
22 ACTING PRESIDENT LITTLE: Thank
23 you.
24 On motion, the Senate stands
25 adjourned until Tuesday, May 3rd, at 3:00 p.m.
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1 (Whereupon, at 5:00 p.m., the
2 Senate adjourned.)
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