Budget Easter egg hunt
New York awoke Saturday to pick apart the sprawling $168 billion state budget passed in the wee hours as lawmakers were skedaddling out of the Capitol to celebrate Passover and Easter. A terrible, rushed and opaque process — what's new? — managed to produce some big advances, notably the first steps toward congestion pricing to save the subways and fast-track construction authority for key city projects.
Meantime, important reforms like protecting child victims of sex abuse fell through the seat cushions. And in one case, outright political blackmail carried the day.
That's what happens when closed-door brinksmanship rules.
The Friday rush was necessitated by one senator's selfish mischief. With all sides desperate to beat the April 1 deadline, Gov. Cuomo and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie buckled to GOP Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, who was being held hostage by Brooklyn Sen. Simcha Felder, without whom Flanagan would have no majority.
Felder demanded that yeshivas escape compliance with basic state education standards — or no deal.
The despicable trick worked. Felder won and thousands of Jewish schoolkids lost.
On the main business, Cuomo kept to a 2% spending increase and closed a $4 billion hole while cutting income tax rates. He secured measures to soften the blows of the federal tax bill; whether they will fly with the IRS is an open question.
It's good that Albany adopted new measures to combat sex harassment and very bad that ethics reform died and lawmakers went along with wrongheaded cuts to Close to Home, a terrific juvenile justice program run by the city’s Administration for Children's Services.
NYCHA’s crumbling apartments can benefit from design-build authority to build faster and cheaper, as can the rehab of the BQE and improving Rikers. The quarter-billion in new money for NYCHA is also welcome, provided it is well spent.
On the subways, the state is compelling the city to contribute $400 million for emergency repairs, matching the state’s share, and the first phase of congestion pricing to boost mass transit has been approved.
Uber and taxi fares below 96th St. will have $2.75 and $2.50 surcharges come Jan. 1, and the law permits the spending to set up the necessary E-ZPass readers and cameras to eventually allow full congestion pricing south of 60th St.
Good going. Now, full speed ahead.