Back to work, New York

When the state Legislature loses a Senate majority leader and an Assembly speaker in one year to corruption, ethics is clearly the elephant in the chamber this session, and the donkey, too.

The convictions of former Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a Republican, and ex-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, should embarrass both major parties. They should be shamed into undertaking a bipartisan effort to clean up this mess.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and lawmakers should start with the ethics watchdog that failed to sniff out so much corruption. They should either overhaul the Joint Commission on Public Ethics to make it more transparent, independent and effective, or replace it.

The Legislature and Mr. Cuomo took some stabs at strengthening requirements on lawmakers for reporting outside income, but they left more wiggle room that they should have. They need to tighten this.

Technically, lawmakers will start fully reporting all their outside clients this year. But given the reporting schedule, it will be more than a year before the public will see all the information. Even then, legislators can seek exemptions to shield disclosure. And they can shop around a bit for those exemptions, choosing either JCOPE or the Office of Court Administration.

All this points to the need for a limit on outside income, as we have in Congress. After all, most lawmakers seem to get along now without another source of income; a recent analysis by Common Cause New York found that about 60 percent of lawmakers elected before 2014 rely solely on their legislative salary.

Restrictions on outside income could be coupled with a modest increase in the $79,500 base pay, at least for seats in high-cost parts of the state. It should also come with an end to the stipends known as lulus – which have come to serve as a tool for legislative leaders to hand out favors in exchange for loyalty.

The Legislature needs, too, to tackle campaign finance, another source of influence and corruption. It needs to lower the contribution limits for donors – now as high as $65,000 for statewide races. It needs to close the loophole through which wealthy individuals can exceed even those high limits by funneling contributions to politicians through separate limited liability companies.

The state needs a real system of public financing of campaigns, and a limited campaign season to end the constant chasing of money and rich donors. If there’s money left in politicians’ coffers after an election, it should go back to donors, or to charity, or toward state debt, or to help replenish a public campaign finance fund.

We’ve said all this before, as have many watchdog groups. And to their credit, Democrats in the Assembly have taken up some of these issues, such as campaign finance reform. They were blocked by Senate Republicans. We’d think that having their leader convicted of corruption would give Senate Republicans a change of heart. The taint is on every legislator.

Addressing corruption, though, is just the essential starting point. There are other key issues lawmakers must pay attention to.

Increased school funding

We’ve watched in recent days as Mr. Cuomo rolled out tens of billions of dollars in proposals for economic development and infrastructure, yet when it comes to public schools, the state remains, if not miserly, then tight-fisted. This frugality might have been appropriate during the Great Recession, but with the state obviously in much better financial shape, the lingering austerity mentality that guides education funding is inexcusable.

In particular, it’s time to eliminate the Gap Elimination Adjustment, a budgeting device that’s diverted school aid to close the state’s own deficit, and to fulfill the promises the state made years ago to adequately fund schools, particularly in needier areas.

Fair funding of higher education

New York is considering whether to renew its “rational tuition plan,” which allows annual tuition hikes at State University of New York campuses. While the state promised to maintain its own commitment, state support has been fairly flat. The result is that students are paying more and more of SUNY’s budget. Tuition uncertainty is bad, but balancing SUNY’s books on the backs of students and parents is inexcusable.

A more livable minimum wage

The governor has been using what power he has to raise minimum wages in the state workforce and the fast food industry, but what’s needed is for the legislature to act broadly on a $15 minimum wage. Yes, this should be done nationally, but it’s pressure from states like New York that will make that happen.

Real public defense

In 2014, the state settled a lawsuit brought in five counties over the inadequate funding of assigned counsel to indigent defendants. We’ve yet to see this addressed statewide. This is both a matter of social justice and a constitutional obligation the state simply can’t ignore.

Don’t forget the capital city

The city of Albany goes into 2016 with a $12.5 million deficit, Mayor Kathy Sheehan’s way of forcing the hand of a state that gives the city far less aid per-capita than other big upstate cities. It’s time to end this persistent inequity. If nothing else, the governor and lawmakers should consider what it would say about their management of New York state if its capital city goes bankrupt.