K-School Pay Suit Filed in N.Y.

A New York State employee organization has filed suit to prevent the State from paying the tuition of an official enrolled this fall at the Kennedy School of Government, calling the payments politically motivated and financially wasteful.

The Organization of Management Confidential Employees (OMCE), a non-bargaining unit of government managers, is suing in New York State Supreme Court to stop the tuition payment to a transportation aid to lame-duck Gov. Hugh Carey. The aid will probably be leaving the government when Carey's term expires this January.

William Cunningham, a deputy commissioner in the State Department of Transportation, last month started in the K-School's one-year mid-career Master of Public Administration (MPA) program.

The suit asks New York State to stop payment on Cunningham's annual salary of $47,600 and the K-School tuition of $7,500, both of which he will receive under a new State program. A hearing has not yet been scheduled.

Cunningham is not receiving any funds from the K-School.

David Zaron, executive director of the OMCE, said yesterday that since Cunningham will probably be leaving the government when Carey's term expires, his K-School education will only benefit the official and not the state.

"The money could be better used to train part-time at the Rockefeller Institute in Albany eight managers who were going to stay in government or keep the jobs of road workers on the highway," Zaron added.

Cunningham said yesterday that he will tender his services to the state at the end of the school year in June and expects to be rehired.

"It would be foolish for either of two candidates for them not to ask me back after my year of training," he added.

Spokesmen for gubernatorial candidates Mario Cuomo and Lewis Lehrman refused to speculate whether Cunningham would be offered a job in their administration.

State Senator Charles Cook (R.-Sullivan County) has written to New York State Comptroller Edward R. Regan calling Cunningham "an appalling attempt to further the career of a political operative."

Draft

A spokesman in Regan's office said the Comptroller had not yet drafted a response to the letter.

William Trueheart, director of the MPA program, said yesterday he believes that Cunningham is "very able and very committed to working in the public interest."

Cunningham worked as deputy appointments secretary to Carey before his job in the transportation department.