Legislature fails to act on many items
ALBANY, N.Y. » With most voters paying more attention to President Donald Trump than state government, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state legislators kept their heads down and forged ahead in 2017.
They passed a $163 billion budget nearly on time, with record school aid and a previously approved tax cut. They legalized Uber, raised the age for criminal prosecution of children, and put in place the nation’s first free college tuition program for qualified students at SUNY and CUNY.
But that workmanlike strategy was unable to produce a successful final outcome for this year’s legislative session.
The Senate and Assembly adjourned for the summer Wednesday without acting on ethics reform, despite a 2016 legislative session that saw former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos get five years and former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver 12 years in federal prison on corruption charges.
They also did not act on tightening oversight of the state’s multi-billion economic development grants program, despite the bidrigging scandal that will see former Cuomo aides and campaign donors go on trial this fall.
New York City schoolchildren were left hanging by the Legislature’s inability to pass a routine school governance extender. Lawmakers also failed to enact a routine extension of local sales tax laws worth millions to upstate and Long Island counties.
And Cuomo, too, saw perhaps the bill closest to his heart and ego stall on the last day of session — a proposal to rename the Thruway’s Tappan Zee Bridge after his late father, Mario Cuomo. The Senate passed the last-minute bill, but the Assembly refused to take a vote, saying they needed more time to think about it.
Cuomo was clearly miffed by how the session turned out. He did not appear in public for days prior to adjournment, then held a press conferences to complain about the outcome. He scheduled the event with 10 minutes advance notice on Thursday.
At his first press conference with Albany reporters in two months, Cuomo criticized legislators, in particular his fellow Democrats.
Cuomo said legislators committed a “dereliction of duty” to New York City school children by not passing the City Hall governance bill, lashing out at the Assembly. “Frankly, worse for the Assembly because the Assembly represents New York City much more than the state Senate,” Cuomo said, saying the Democratic Assembly majority is overwhelmingly from seats in New York City.
“For a body that talks so much about education, to leave without an agreement where in a matter of days you could revert back to the board of education system, is just the height of irresponsibility,” Cuomo said.
Lawmakers said they did not intend to return to Albany until 2018, but they came under immediate pressure to do so. Without an extension of mayoral control, on July 1 Mayor Bill de Blasio will cede authority to an appointed school board that in the past has been tarred by scandal and dysfunction.
That shift from mayoral control to a school board last happened in 2009, when a similar stalemate replaced mayoral control with a board controlled by the mayor for almost six weeks.
With the need to extend local sales tax laws, it appears likely that the Legislature will work out a deal sometime this summer to return to Albany and act on both measures.
In the meantime, various government watchdog groups unloaded on Cuomo and the Legislature.
“A $500,000 grant to support a solar-powered carousel in Buffalo—raising that project’s total taxpayer subsidy to more than $1 million—was among the 1,782 local pork-barrel projects awarded grants by state lawmakers in the final hours of this week’s legislative session,” the Empire Center reported.
The merry-go-round will be installed on the shore of Lake Erie in Buffalo.
Among other recipients, the Saratoga Automobile Museum got $21,000.
NYPIRG reported 183 separate fundraisers during the six month session. “No Corruption-Busting Reforms? No Problem!’ the group headlined the press release.
The groups were especially critical of the lack of action on government ethics and contract procurement.
“This is a massive failure by New York State government, starting with the governor, who actively worked to derail Clean Contracting reforms,” John Kaehny of Reinvent Albany said. “What message does it send when the governor, Senate and Assembly fail to pass reforms after the biggest bid-rigging scandal in state history? Why should the public believe that Albany is spending public money — our money — cleanly and fairly?”
“Scandals and ensuing inaction seem to be the ‘new normal’ in Albany ... Yet another sad day in Albany politics,” said Ron Deutsch of the Fiscal Policy Institute.