0.4% of New York State employees have completed the required ethics training

Despite a mandate from Gov. Kathy Hochul, a pathetic 0.4% of New York State’s 130,000 employees have taken the live training on sexual harassment and ethics that they are required by law to take, according to a Sunday report.

Hochul, who vowed to transform Albany’s culture when she took office following former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s sexual harassment scandal and subsequent resignation, made the training a key part of her plan, the New York Times reported.

The governor said staff couldn’t “click through a class” under her supervision, according to the newspaper, showing Hochul was not committing resources to fulfill her promise.

“We are working very hard to erase this culture so that every woman, every person, in the workplace in New York State will feel free from discrimination, harassment and abuse,” she told the Post in October 2021.

More than a year later, she still has to set up a universal course for all employees to get on the topic.

“What we’re asking for isn’t scalable,” Rep. Pat Fahy, a Democrat representing Albany, told The Times. “We go overboard with the requirements without providing any of the tools to implement them.”

Before taking office, about 35,000 employees underwent mandatory ethics training, according to the Times, a number that has nearly quadrupled with her tenure.

“This was a well-intentioned but ill-conceived process that deserves further attention,” said MP John McDonald, also a Capital-area Democrat.

The governor herself has come under fire for ethical failings, including her backroom deal to build a new stadium for her hometown of Buffalo Bills. New York taxpayers will pay an unprecedented $850 million in public funds to build the $1.4 billion stadium.

It proved particularly controversial after it was revealed that her husband, Bill Hochul, is the senior vice president and general counsel of Delaware North, a major food franchiser at the Buffalo Bills’ current stadium.

To make matters worse, their handpicked Lieutenant Gov. Brian Benjamin returned in April after being indicted by federal prosecutors in Manhattan on corruption charges, some of which were later dropped.

Hochul Flak Hazel Crampton-Hays told the Times that “eradicating a centuries-old culture of sexism and corruption is not an overnight task and using arbitrary benchmarks for one of the many good government initiatives undertaken by this governor to increase engagement.” the forest for the trees is missing.”

Crampton-Hays also said that the state ethics committee received $2 million more under Hochul than it did under Cuomo — but the group’s interim chairman, Frederick Davie, seemed to indicate that that wasn’t enough.

“We need to have the resources to do that,” he said. “Otherwise the whole thing is a mockery.”