Albany, NY - So That's Where Our Tax Dollars Went!

Albany, NY - State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver gave out almost $7.5 million in pork-barrel cash this year, records show.

That makes the Manhattan Democrat tops in the Legislature, which doled out a total of $170 million in the so-called "member item" grants at the discretion of individual legislators without public debate or vote.

Silver's grants included:
* $14,000 to the Council for a Cleaner Chinatown and $35,000 for the Chinatown YMCA.
* Grants totaling $543,000 to the United Jewish Council of the East Side.
* $200,000 to the Metropolitan New York Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty.
* $265,000 for the Center for Battered Women's Legal Services.

"A lot of things we use the fund for are items that we haven't been able to get done through the budget," a Silver spokeswoman said.