Before she even got to Albany, Shirley Huntley knew the drill.

Eight months before she was elected to the state Senate from Jamaica, Huntley founded a nonprofit called The Parent Workshop out of her home. Huntley listed herself as president.

Once in Albany, Huntley steered $30,000 to the charity, then run by an old friend. Then she tried to give it another $125,000 in pork-barrel money, her largest so-called member item in two years.

What charitable purpose The Parent Workshop served is a mystery.

Sham charities are a way of political life in southeast Queens, where a number of elected officials are under investigation for steering money to groups they founded — and which were often staffed by cronies — and whose mission and spending is dubious.

State Sen. Malcolm Smith and US Rep. Gregory Meeks are under a federal probe for their ties to a charity they helped form called the New Direction Local Development Corp. Smith funneled more than $56,000 in taxpayer cash to the Springfield Gardens group, which never fully accounted for its spending.

And The Post revealed that the charity’s Hurricane Katrina fund spent almost none of the more than $31,000 it took in to help victims.

Assemblywoman Vivian Cook’s group, the Rockaway Boulevard Local Development Corp., shut its doors last year after The Post detailed its wasteful spending of $2.5 million in Port Authority money designated to spruce up a stretch of Rockaway Boulevard. It is now under a federal probe.

The questionable alliances between pols and nonprofits go beyond Queens. Former state Sen. Pedro Espada was indicted last year for using his Soundview health-care centers in The Bronx as a personal piggy bank.

A charity tied to Bronx Assemblyman Peter Rivera, which he helped get nearly $2.2 million in state money, is under federal investigation, as is a group linked to Assemblyman Vito Lopez.

But in the working-class neighborhoods of Jamaica, South Ozone Park and the Rockaways, politicians turned the con into an art.

In Queens Village, Assemblywoman Barbara Clark helped to start a charity called the Community Care Development Project and sent almost $500,000 in member-item money to it from 2006 to 2009.

Huntley, 72, was a community activist and a latecomer to politics.

But the Democrat was not unfamiliar with nonprofits. In 1994, her daughter, Pamela Corley, set up a nonprofit at the family home called the Parents Information Network “to disseminate information to parents and others regarding the inner workings of the New York City public-school system.”

The group managed to get $415,500 in state money from 1996 to 2008. Cook sponsored several grants, including a $30,000 allocation after Huntley became her colleague in the Senate.

The purpose of Huntley’s Parent Workshop was nearly identical to the Parents Information Network — to “increase parents knowledge of the inner workings of the New York City school system,” according to its handwritten incorporation papers.

Its application to get tax-exempt status, which it later obtained, said it aimed to get its funding from government grants.

Indeed, Huntley sponsored a $30,000 member item in 2008-09, and the group ended up receiving $29,950 in five installments from the state Department of State.

In May 2008, the group’s president was Patricia Savage, state documents show. Later that year, Savage went to work for the Senate and now earns $85,000 as Huntley’s “confidential assistant.”

Huntley tried to give the group another $125,000 in 2009-10, but told The Post that she “had heard” that such an allocation might be improper because of her ties to the organization. Indeed, she says, the Senate Office of Fiscal Integrity told her “It doesn’t look good, Senator.”

As for the propriety of the $30,000 allocation, she says: “At the time, I didn’t realize it. I was a new senator. I didn’t know.”

Huntley insists she set up the charity before she knew she was running for office.

Vanessa Sparks, a longtime friend of Huntley, now heads the group. The only public evidence of Parent Workshop programming is a four-minute YouTube video that shows Sparks giving a college financial-aid workshop to high-school students.

Government watchdogs say the state’s pork-barrel spending has to go.

“It’s all about rewarding political power and favored groups, and then you add on top of it the controversies and scandals,” said Blair Horner, legislative director of the New York Public Interest Research Group.

Land of bilk and money

Southeast Queens pols and their charities:

State Sen. Malcolm Smith



* Nonprofit: New Direction Local Development Corp.

Steered more than $56,000 to the group, which failed to document most of its spending and ran a shady Hurricane Katrina fund that stiffed victims. Charity housed in the office of campaign treasurer Joan Flowers, whom Smith rewarded with a $145,396-a-year Senate job.

* Status: Out of business. Under federal investigation

Greater Jamaica Development Corp.



Tied to many of the elected officials in the area. Meeks steered millions in federal dollars and tax credits to the organization, which counts the Rev. Floyd Flake — a former congressman and Meeks’ mentor — as a board member. The feds have subpoenaed records relating to Meeks’ allocations. The city recently ruled that a for-profit parking garage operated by Greater Jamaica, which generated millions in revenue, can no longer enjoy tax-exempt status and must pay property taxes.

* Status: Still operating

Congressman Gregory Meeks



* Nonprofit: New Direction Local Development Corp.

Promised all cash raised through its Hurricane Katrina fund would go to victims, but most of the money is unaccounted for.

* Status: Out of business. Under federal investigation

Assemblywoman Vivian Cook



* Nonprofit: Rockaway Boulevard Local Development Corp.

Received more than $2 million in Port Authority money to improve Rockaway Boulevard. Spent $560,500 to buy a derelict piece of land, and another $255,625 on street sweeping, which was farmed out to another nonprofit.

* Status: Shuttered. Under investigation by the PA inspector general and the US attorney.

Assemblywoman Barbara Clark



* Nonprofit: Community Care Development Project

Helped found the charity, and funneled $481,500 in member items to it. It operates a vague “referral center,” duplicating many of the same services as Clark’s district office down the street. Even Clark admitted the group’s books were in disarray.

* Status: Still open

State Sen. Shirley Huntley



* Nonprofit: The Parent Workshop, Parents Information Network

Started Parent Workshop out of her home, then sent it $30,000 in state money. The group, later run by a friend, purports to help parents navigate the school system. It is suspiciously similar to the Parents Information Network, also started out of Huntley’s home and run by her daughter. That group got $415,000 in state money. Neither accounted for any spending.

* Status: Still operating

melissa.klein@nypost.com

