N.Y. nepotism; Graduation rate ills

Imagine all this discussed out in the open, as anything in the state budget should be. The way the $200 million in political slush funds controlled by top state leaders are divvied up doesn't require such timely disclosure. If anything, the way so-called member item money is spent precludes it.

That's good for Assemblyman Ruben Diaz and his family, perhaps, but bad for the other 19 million or so New Yorkers.

Perhaps most of the more than $1 million that Mr. Diaz secured for the Soundview Community in Action in the Bronx from 1998-2003 was reasonably spent. All the more reason, then, for stripping away the secrecy behind the allocation of member items. But a more open budget process, treating the state's money less like it actually belongs to the politicians who control it, might have balked at helping to fund an endeavor that had three members of his family on its payroll.