Tedisco: NYS Legislature Passes Bill To Go Digital, Stop Paper Waste and Save Taxpayer Dollars at the Capitol

Save millions of tax dollars and allow a digital copy of legislation to suffice on a member’s desk

June 21, 2013

Assemblyman Jim Tedisco (R,C,I-Glenville) today announced that both houses of the New York State Legislature have passed, for a second time, a constitutional amendment he sponsors and has advocated for several years (A.7868/S.4417A) to enable the state legislature to go digital and stop wasting paper and tax dollars.

The measure would allow digital copies of legislation to suffice on a state legislator’s desk, thereby, cutting down on the hundreds of thousands of pieces of paper at the Capitol.

Tedisco has been outspoken about saving tax dollars and the environment by stopping the wasteful printing of bills that often go unread and end up getting tossed into landfills. The bi-partisan bill is co-sponsored by Tedisco and sponsored by Assemblywoman Sandy Galef and Senator Carl Marcellino (R-Syosset).

“Mother Earth is smiling today and so are taxpayers because the New York State Legislature is about to go digital to stop the wasteful printing of bills that can easily be displayed electronically on a laptop, iPad, Kindle or some other mobile device,” said Tedisco. “This is a victory for taxpayers and for anyone who cares about reducing our carbon footprint.”

About 17,800 bills were introduced in the 2011-12 legislative term. During budget time, the Assembly, Senate and Governor each have their own version of the document that often goes through multiple amendments. Each time the budget is amended it has to be printed a minimum of 213 times to sit on 213 legislative desks. One budget bill could contain hundreds of pages of content, and there are typically 10 budget bills each year, Tedisco noted.

“It’s enough to make your head spin. Clearly, the Capitol is drowning in paper. There shouldn’t be a limit on introducing ideas inspired by the needs of our constituents, but there should be a limit on the amount of paper used when the legislature could easily go digital,” said Tedisco.

Tedisco previously debated the Assembly Ways and Means Committee Chairman to learn how much taxpayers are spending on all the printing of legislation and paper in Albany. Tedisco uncovered that taxpayers are on the hook for $13 million a year to pay for all the legislative printing and up to $40 million just to haul the waste away. (See link here and above).

“That’s an obscene amount of money to spend on paper when our state has so many other pressing spending priorities,” said Tedisco.

“Travel down the hallway on the third floor of the Capitol and on the second floor of the Legislative Office Building and you’ll find what I’ve dubbed the ‘Bunker of Bills’. These four separate Document Rooms, two for each house of the legislature, are loaded from floor to ceiling with hundreds of thousands of paper copies of legislation in little steel cabinet cubbies just waiting for someone, anyone, to pick them up,” said Tedisco.

“The Document rooms look like something out of the scene from the very end of the film Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the Ark is wheeled into a warehouse full of crates. Bills are carted into the Document rooms but virtually no one stops by to claim them,” said Tedisco.

Tedisco is also sponsoring the Legislative Online Paperwork Reduction Act (A.6080) to save taxpayers millions of dollars by ending the unnecessary printing of state agency, university, authority and legislative reports, digests and the thousands of bills that sit in the Document rooms. This bill could be implemented immediately, if passed, as it does not require a constitutional amendment.

“We’re moving state government into the 21st century with its communications,” said Tedisco.

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