Senator Efrain Gonzalez’s indictment on criminal corruption and fraud charges put a face on the secret nature of member items, or state grants doled out by elected officials at their discretion. Before 2007, neither the Senate nor Assembly publicized how $170 million in member item funds were being distributed.

After a lawsuit by the Albany Times-Union and Gonzalez’s indictment, transparency and ethics reform became the hot topics going into the legislative session of 2007. Governor Eliot Spitzer and new Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, both newly installed in their positions, said ethics reform would be a high priority.

Spitzer made it so individual member items would be attached to the names of lawmakers and published in the state budget. But the list is not published until after the budget has been finalized, leading transparency advocates to say the reforms don’t go far enough.

Cuomo hired longtime government watchdog Blair Horner to run Project Sunlight, a Web site detailing the work, fund-raising and member items of individual lawmakers, which was just unveiled on Dec. 5. Check out what your local elected official is doing at www.sunlightny.com.

The transparency bug has bitten the Big Apple as well. Last summer, the City Council began publishing individual member items on its Web site.