Do It For the Party

Are minority scholarships your cause? They’re a good cause, even if there are other good causes as well, and certainly an appropriate cause for the New York State Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators. You can tell from the name that it’s old school, when Puerto Ricans were the only Latinos around. That hasn’t been the case in decades now, yet the name persists. But surely these would be people for whom this cause was important.

A nonprofit run by state lawmakers to raise scholarship money for needy minority students spends most of the cash on its lavish annual soiree — including $6,000 on limos — and gave out no grants the last two years, The Post has learned.

The New York State Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators organizes a “Caucus Weekend” — a series of workshops, concerts and parties — in Albany every February for minority members of the Assembly and the Senate.

Workshops sound useful, maybe, but are they real?

The group charges sponsors up to $50,000 for a chance to party with lawmakers at events that have ­included Grammy Award-winning rappers and high-profile speakers such as Hillary Clinton and Jesse Jackson.

The Presidents Day weekend bash is capped off with a swanky black-tie Scholarship Gala where participants are reminded that they are “changing lives, one scholarship at a time,” according to the group’s Web site and literature.

Except they haven’t given anyone a scholarship in the past two years.Not one person. Not one scholarship. Sure, they have a cute slogan and makes people feel warm and fuzzy, but the only lives affected are those taking limos to black-tie galas. And they’re not students.

Federal tax filings confirm that in the 2015-16 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, 2016, the group gave out no educational grants — despite raking in contributions totaling more than $500,000.

“I don’t know what happened,” said Assemblyman Gary Pretlow, a Westchester Democrat and the longtime treasurer for the group. “I just sign the checks they give me to sign.”

While students went without scholarships, the lawmakers at Caucus Weekend 2016 spent $128,000 on “food service,” $36,500 on music and $56,494 on “equipment rental.”

If you run the numbers, that leaves a significant chunk of change unaccounted for. There are no doubt additional costs, as galas don’t come cheap, and yet they don’t appear to cost $500,000 either. Still, there is one thing we know the money didn’t go toward: minority scholarships.

Asking the treasurer where the money went to isn’t helpful. As Gary Pretlow says, he just signed the checks, which is pretty much all treasurers of such organizations do. They should do more. They should know what they’re signing and why, where the money is going and why, to be sure that it’s legit, but they rarely do. Treasurer isn’t a sexy job, and the decisions are made by others, usually someone in some executory position who makes the party happen.

Whether the money is going anywhere else, any pockets where it doesn’t belong, is unknown and can’t be assumed. It’s bad enough that sponsors are buying access to minority legislators at $50 grand a pop, all under the guise of a charity to “change lives, one scholarship at a time.”

Doesn’t anyone involved know? Do they care?

Latrice Walker

Assemblywoman Latrice Walker, a Brooklyn Democrat, the current chair of the nonprofit’s board, who is campaigning to be the city’s public advocate, said through a spokesman that she “does not have any knowledge of the matter.”

 

State Sen. Leroy Comrie, a Queens Democrat and second-ranking board executive, did not return phone calls and e-mails, and would not emerge from his St. Albans district office when a Post reporter visited Friday.

It’s almost as if they don’t want to talk about their cause. Go figure. Yet, there’s no reluctance to talk about the virtues of the “platinum package.”

The nonprofit charges sponsors like unions, lobbying firms and corporations up to $50,000 for a “Platinum Package” which includes tickets to workshops on expanding access to government contracts for minority and women-owned businesses, on gun ­violence, and parties where participants can rub elbows with lawmakers and “ a large community of advocates.”

As every large community of advocates knows, it’s important to keep your tux or ball gown pressed so you can make those $50 grand per lobbyist galas. But it’s not just lobbyists, or free-booze miscreants, enjoying the bash.

The weekend is considered a can’t-miss date on the Albany political calendar.

Past weekends have included an exclusive screening of “Black Panther” and an after-party concert by Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick, or Grammy-winning rapper Big Daddy Kane. Speakers have included Gov. Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio, former US Ambassador Andrew Young and TV host and medical-marijuana advocate Montel Williams.

Big names. Woke names. All lending their thoughtfulness to an excellent cause and really fun party. And former New York City Public Advocate, now state Attorney General, Letitia James, was “troubled” to learn of all this.

But before one leaps to any conclusions, that mere race and gender distinguishes the good guys from the bad, this wasn’t the only charitable game in Albany.

Somos Inc. — the charitable group created by New York’s Hispanic legislators — gave out $93,985 in scholarships and awards in fiscal 2017 and $81,400 the prior year, records show.

The group also raised $233,540 for Hurricane Maria recovery efforts in Puerto Rico over the past year thanks to generous financial backers, Somos executive director Jose Paulino said on Monday.

Whether this is good enough for a legitimate charity may not be clear, since there’s no information on how much money this group pulled in, but it beats the crap out of throwing a huge party with $6,000 for limos alone while not giving a dime to the actual cause. One thing is abundantly clear, however: that good money spent on good-sounding causes based on nothing more than a heartwarming tagline and the “correct” race and gender of its “correct” party-affiliated board isn’t good enough.

Do It For the Party curated from Simple Justice