Legislature OKs tax extension

ALBANY, N.Y. » Central New York will get its sales tax extension following a whirlwind legislative special session that included extending mayoral control of New York City schools and renaming the Tappan Zee Bridge.

The legislation signed Thursday included a grab bag of initiatives, programs and policies negotiated by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and top lawmakers behind closed doors in recent days.

The 15-year-old policy giving New York City’s mayor control of city schools was set to expire Friday if lawmakers hadn’t voted to renew it. Lawmakers ended their regular session last week without a deal to extend the policy, only to be ordered back into session by the governor.

If mayoral control had lapsed, oversight of the nation’s largest school system would have reverted to dozens of community school boards. Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, has said centralized control has led to better educational outcomes, greater efficiency and programs like universal pre-kindergarten.

“Providing a two-year extension gives the system an important measure of stability that’s key to initiatives that have produced record achievement,” de Blasio said Thursday.

In exchange for supporting an extension of the policy, Republicans in the state Senate demanded help for residents along Lake Ontario hard hit by recent floods. Lawmakers also included the extension of local sales taxes and inserted language to allow Vernon Downs race track and casino to keep more of the money it now sends to the state. The facility in central New York had threatened to close if the state didn’t help.

With something for just about every lawmaker the measure easily passed and allowed lawmakers to leave Albany.

“It’s not perfect, but it’s a balance that showed compromise,” Deputy Senate Majority Leader John DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, said of the final bill that allowed lawmakers to adjourn for the year.

During debate on the Senate floor Thursday, several lawmakers listed items that didn’t make the final bill andwill go unaddressed for another year. The list includes more money to deal with growing train and subway delays and breakdowns in New York City and ethics reforms to take on Albany’s culture of corruption.

“No ethics reform —year after year, scandal after scandal,” said Sen. Daniel Squadron, D-Brooklyn.

EVAN AGOSTINI — ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE In this Oct. 18, 2011file photo, former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo speaks from the podium at the Game Changers Awards at Skylight Soho in New York. The former governor’s son, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on Thursday signed into law a bill naming the new...