The state does that all the time, by channeling debt through its sprawling network of public authorities. The excuse is that since the state is not formally obligated to pay interest on the bonds of its authorities, they don't count as actual borrowing which voters would have to approve. The theory is bad enough, but the practice is worse. State officials more or less openly admit that they resort to authority bonding to get money for purposes voters would probably turn down if put on the ballot. These things have lives of their own.
Officials argue that such practices are lawful under existing precedent.
In the 1970s, a Brooklyn Law School professor named Leon Wein filed and lost a number of suits challenging backdoor financing. The Wein cases are still good law, say the agencies. None of which discouraged taxpayer activist Robert L. Schulz. At first, like many of his pro se brethren, Schulz seemed a mere nuisance. Indeed, in 1992 a lawyer representing the state Democratic party and Governor Cuomo's campaign committee sought a permanent injunction barring the Glens Falls resident from filing any more of his putatively frivolous lawsuits.