You’ve got to hand it to three of Western New York’s most prominent political players — they have found one way to inject their own form of government stimulus into the Niagara County economy.

When Buffalo Sabres owner B. Thomas Golisano announced he was moving his home to Florida to protest — and avoid paying — New York state taxes, he said something had to be done about the high cost of government in New York state. His chief political operative, G. Steven Pigeon, heads up Golisano’s various political committees and dispenses campaign money to people who campaign for better government. And when the state Senate changed from decades of Republican control to control by Democrats, George Maziarz agreed to work with both Pigeon and Golisano to throw the state Senate into turmoil — literally shutting it down for a month last year at the most crucial time in the Legislature’s calendar.

Well, the figures are out on the results of last years’ coup. The various machinations of these local political do-gooders will cost New Yorkers at least $7 million dollars extra in taxpayer money in 2010. And that’s just the projected increase in state Senate staff allocations!

I seem to say this every week, but you can’t make this stuff up. Just reading and stumbling upon information provides more unbelievable stories about our local politicians than any Hollywood fiction writer could ever come up with in several lifetimes.

The Gannett Newspapers conducted a study based on state Senate payroll records. I found the link on the WGRZ Web site (www.wgrz.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=75249). I feel I have to provide you with that link so that you can go read the data for yourself. Otherwise this just sounds made-up.

When you go there you’ll see that while the press releases from our own politicians demanding state government reform itself, spend less money, and bring morality back into our government, their actions are exactly the opposite.

By this time, nobody really believes that the farcical state Senate coup attempt was about good government. It’s become clear it was all about money and control. And that was always more money and our three local heroes getting more control.

According to the spreadsheet put together by Gannett, Maziarz added $139,440 to his annual Senate staff payroll. That was fourth highest in the entire Senate. The highest was Sen. Pedro Espada, who added Pigeon’s $150,000 salary to his staff; second was Sen. Sampson, who became the technical leader of the Senate. That’s some pretty steep company and some pretty expensive staff tastes for Niagara County’s state senator to be in the company of. Fourth highest staff increase? For Niagara County? Really?

But the unbelievable number that jumps out at anyone looking at this data would be the total increased amount for staff purposes to operate the state Senate. In only one year, state Senate payroll increased by $7,404,234. I would bet most people would guess that the entire budget for the legislature wasn’t even $7 million. Certainly no one would guess the total is in the $200 million range.

I recently had a conversation with someone on the inside of government in Albany. They told me that both the governor and the speaker of the Assembly are completely unable to work on legislation because on any given day, nobody knows who to deal with in the state Senate. It’s so bereft of any form of leadership that nobody can sign off on legislation or budget deals because no one is really in charge in the Senate.

We all understand that in the grown-up worlds, there is politics and there is the business of government. There’s what gets said to the media, and then there is what transpires behind closed doors for the pure necessity of legislating.  If nobody can figure out who is in charge of one of the three branches of legislative government — the state Senate — then we may just have found out why New York state is in the shape it’s in — which is pathetic.

And the price of pathetic — what it costs this one branch of government to become an anarchy — is an extra $7 million this year. And we need to be absolutely clear: this isn’t someone in that evil New York City or that mythical “Albany.” The architects of this latest budget increase are right here, in our own back yard, telling us we need to reform government.

The spreadsheet from Gannett proves that our three local heroes may have a different interpretation of reform than the taxpayer who’s footing the bill for their increased expenses, and that growing the economy doesn’t mean hiring more staff.