By Hank Russell
A recent report by The Empire Center found that state legislators doled out more than $83 million in grants to 293 local projects between April and December 2025. Of that amount, over $8 million went to various projects on Long Island.
According to the think tank, governor and state legislators hand-picked the grantees for more than $72 million, under a program that allows them to direct money borrowed by the New York State Dormitory Authority (DASNY) to capital projects. Authority for the grants comes from the State and Municipal Facilities Program (SAM), a slush fund created in 2013 that lets individual lawmakers and the governor choose grant recipients.
Based on data supplied by SeeThroughNY and obtained by The Empire Center through a Freedom of Information Act request, Suffolk County received 19 grants for a combined $2,909,600. The largest grant was given to the Incorporated Village of Lindenhurst in the amount of $400,000 for the purchase and installation of a fuel tank system at the Department of Public Works.
Nassau County received 20 grants totaling $5,486,516, based on data from The Empire Center. The largest grant went to the Hempstead Union Free School District for $1 million for the purchase of vehicles and paving of the parking lot. The think tank found that this allocation for non-instructional infrastructure occurs while the district is under state-appointed fiscal monitoring and faces a reported $34 million budget deficit.
There is also a Higher Education Capital Matching Grant Program that gives out money to universities, according to The Empire Center. This comes from other sources. The largest grant to go to a Long Island-based university was $5 million to Molloy University for the construction of the Center for Workforce Development in Applied Laboratory Sciences.”
The Empire Center stated, “The so-called pork-barrel grants are not awarded on a competitive or transparent basis, and most get disbursed outside the normal budget process, meaning state lawmakers never vote on the individual recipients.”