New York Gov. Kathy Hochul spent $2 million to hire outside speechwriters for her recent State of the State addresses, according to The New York Times.

Major consulting firm Deloitte made over $1 million for “project management” on a book and a speech in Hochul’s first full year as governor, while Boston Consulting Group made $838,000 for its help, which was listed in state records as “SOS Support,” The Times found through a public records request.

Another firm was paid $25,000 just to help hire a writer for Hochul’s state-of-the-state book “Achieving the New York Dream.” She paid another $60,000 to Fenway Strategies in 2022 for writing, editing, and speechwriting, The New York Post also reported.

Politicians frequently turn to ghostwriters for major political speeches, and consulting firms have become a mainstay of New York government. But Hochul’s use of such firms in preparing the annual state message appears to be an unusual.

Representatives of three of Hochul’s predecessors — Andrew Cuomo, David Paterson and George Pataki — said they had never paid for outside help to prepare for the annual address.

Hochul’s office defended the expenditures, claiming these consultants never made policy recommendations or decisions.

The New York Governor’s Office had a generous operating budget of $122 billion, which is more than enough to hire speechwriters. In fact, Hochul does have an in-house staff of multiple speechwriters, and just recently were interested in hiring more. So Hochul paid a staff of at least two full time speech writers, along with a small army of communications specialists, all to outsource the important work to outside consultants.

This is incredibly wasteful and insulting to New York residents, and Gov. Hochul should use the staff she employs to do the jobs they were hired to do instead of outsourcing work to expensive consultants.

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