Jesse McKinley reports in The New York Times that New York's comptroller’s office is investigating with law enforcement officials stipends being doled out to state senators for committee positions they did not hold. Republican leadership in Albany approved a plan to award tens of thousands of dollars to certain Senate committee vice chairmen, even though state law does not explicitly allow such stipends. Three members getting payments are Democrats that vote with Republicans as the Independent Democratic Conference. Governor Andrew Cuomo, though, criticized the comptroller’s office for signing off on the Senate’s disputed stipends. ”If it was not legal, the comptroller shouldn’t have done it,” he said. State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office and the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District each both also requested relevant documents from the comptroller’s office about this issue. Read the full story in The New York Times.