Budget approval at hand — or is it?
State lawmakers say deal is in place, but Gov. Cuomo says voting will wait
The stalemate over New York’s tardy state budget took a new turn Tuesday when lawmakers insisted they had a deal on a new spending plan, only to be dismissed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who insisted there is no need to rush.
Increasingly frustrated legislators — who will not be paid until a budget is approved — blamed the Democratic governor in what has become an increasingly acrimonious standoff at the Capitol.
“The Assembly is still here, we’re ready to work,” said Speaker Carl Heastie, D-Bronx, repeating his demand that Cuomo send the proposals to legislators to begin debate. “Like I said, send the bills.”
Cuomo disputed the existence of a final agreement and said
lawmakers have time to negotiate now that they have passed, at his urging, a two-month extension of the last budget. He said lawmakers could head home for Easter and Passover and return in a few weeks to pass a budget.
“We’ll do it when they come back,” he said. “The government is working . ... the pressure is really off.”
The final issues of contention in the budget are related to a Democratic proposal to raise the age of criminal responsibility so 16- and 17-year-old offenders aren’t routinely prosecuted and incarcerated as adults, and the reauthorization of an affordable housing tax credit for
New York City developers.
Scott Reif, a spokesman for Republican Senate Leader John Flanagan, confirmed “conceptual” agreements on all major budget items and said the Senate was prepared to begin voting on Tuesday.
Lawmakers had planned to remain in Albany through Wednesday, and Heastie said the Assembly is prepared to stay as long as necessary to pass a budget.
Many lawmakers said the delay was creating problems for school districts, who won’t know how much they’ll receive in state aid until a budget is passed.
“We are saddling them with the challenging task of creating and passing their own budgets with limited information about school funding,” said Assemblywoman
Didi Barrett, a Columbia County Democrat.
A spokesman for Cuomo said lawmakers are to blame for the situation.
“The obligation was to get the budget done by April 1 and they failed,” said spokesman Rich Azzopardi. “If they were worried about the school districts, they would have gotten it done by April 1.”
Cuomo introduced his $152 billion budget proposal in January. It keeps the status quo when it comes to taxes, adds $1 billion in new public education spending and includes expanded child care tax credits and a new $163 million initiative making state college tuition free for students from families earning $125,000 or less annually.