Last year, Lawrence Alibozek, who was Mr. Rowland's deputy chief of staff, admitted taking bribes to steer state contracts.
So his plans to bring in a "pupil premium" to steer state support to children from disadvantaged backgrounds and to cut class sizes are sacrosanct.
Federal prosecutors are investigating whether Gov. John G. Rowland's former co-chief of staff, Peter N. Ellef, orchestrated a bribery scheme to steer state construction projects to a contractor, federal and state officials said today.
Mr. Rowland's former deputy chief of staff, Lawrence Alibozek, pleaded guilty to helping to steer state contracts in return for bribes of cash and gold coins, which investigators found buried in his backyard.
Mr. Rowland faces a federal corruption investigation and an impeachment inquiry, both of which center on whether he improperly helped steer state contracts to people who gave him gifts.
The corruption scandal that blew up in Albany this week is the equivalent of a Russian nesting doll: a federal prosecutor accusing a state senator of conspiring with county party bosses and a city councilman to buy a spot on a city ballot and to steer state money to a village mayor.
He announced in April 2006 that he was making public the Senate Democrats' member items, and said in a press release that he had issued guidelines two years earlier warning senators not to steer state money to organizations with which they or their immediate family members were affiliated.
It also clears away another peripheral battle in the larger confrontation at the Capitol over Mr. Rowland, who is under federal investigation and faces an impeachment inquiry examining if he improperly helped steer state contracts to people who gave him gifts.
But members of the committee that will decide whether to recommend Mr. Rowland's impeachment are now seeking more information about how Mr. Rowland and Judge Robertson came to their agreement, and whether Mr. Rowland helped steer state business to Judge Robertson's firm.
He helped found Change-NY, an anti-tax group that steered state Republicans to the right, and served on Gov. George E. Pataki's transition team.
