LEGISLATURE SCURRIES THROUGH DEALS ON NURSING HOMES, METH

ALBANY -- Convicted sex offenders would be denied any state coverage
for erectile dysfunction care and the state would provide $134
million to Upstate nursing homes mostly to raise the salaries of
workers represented by a politically powerful union, according to
agreements announced Thursday.

State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno announced the agreement to
provide the public funding for private salaries of upstate nursing
home workers who are represented by the Service Employees
International Union Local 1199 over three years. The proposal had
previously been for $80 million over three years. Supporters argue
the public will benefit because better wages, which can be less than
$10 an hour, will attract better employees to care for nursing home residents.

The SEIU is the same international union at the heart of one of
Albany's most notorious private deals. Negotiating with the governor
and legislative leaders behind closed doors in 2002, SEIU won public
funding for raises for its health care workers in a multibillion
dollar health care reform act. Its president and Hispanic leader,
Dennis Rivera, then endorsed Pataki. The union and its locals also
contributed $4.5 million to political action committees from 2000 to 2004.

Earlier Thursday, Pataki announced several other agreements on what
was scheduled to be the last day of the 2005 legislative session. The
Senate, however, plans to return today to pass bills based on
Thursday's last-minute agreements.

Pataki said those agreements include harsher penalties for setting up
methamphetamine labs that have plagued some rural areas and tighter
reins on the New York Racing Association. The NYRA proposal would set
up a new oversight board that could take over NYRA if the
long-troubled private organization fails to overcome its legal
problems -- a necessary step to maintain the state's franchise to
operate its thoroughbred race tracks.

The "NYRA Oversight Board" would include three representatives of the
governor and one each from the Assembly and Senate, Pataki said. The
board would replace a board within NYRA established by its board of
trustees and management, which Pataki and state and federal
investigators have accused of mismanagement and corruption. NYRA is
under federal indictment.

The state also will speed up an analysis on the future of horse
racing and the future of NYRA running the state's Aqueduct, Belmont
and Saratoga race tracks, Pataki said.

The sex offender bill, when passed by the Legislature in this last
week of the scheduled session and signed by Pataki, will replace the
governor's temporary executive order that denied state funding for
erectile dysfunction treatment. The law will deny such medication and
treatment under Medicaid and the state's subsidized health programs
for the poor, disabled, elderly and working poor. The care would be
denied to any convicted sex offenders on the state Megan's Law
registry that have been released to communities after serving sentences.

"This will allow us to continue to provide drugs in appropriate cases
for Medicaid recipients, but be sure that none of those criminals are
in any way involved," Pataki said.

In a related bill, the Senate gave final legislative approval to a
bill that would make a convicted sex offender who takes a job as an
ice cream truck operator guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable with up
to a year in jail. A second offense would be a felony, under the bill
prompted by a Wisconsin case.

The bill targeting so-called crystal methamphetamine labs was pushed
by the Republican minority of the Assembly and Republican majority of
the Senate as a major objective. The bill will lengthen sentences for
operating the narcotics labs as well as for handling and disposing
the main ingredients used in the drug's manufacture.

The Legislature entered its last scheduled day of the 2005
legislative session on Thursday, negotiating additional measures
including shipping wine by the case to consumers and ushering in a
new Yankee Stadium.

One of the early agreements in the Legislature's traditionally long
last day provided the New York Yankees the state authorization the
team was promised to rebuild "the house that Ruth built" in 1923.

The Assembly on Thursday gave final legislative authorization to
build parking facilities required for the new stadium and to require
property of at least equal size be used for parkland.

The Yankees, Gov. George Pataki and New York City Mayor Michael
Bloomberg announced plans last week for an $800 million stadium in
the Bronx next to the current one. The stadium is scheduled to open in 2009.