Bill ed control not renewed
ALBANY — In a major blow to Mayor de Blasio, the state Legislature late Wednesday night ended its annual session without renewing his authority to govern city schools.
Talks among legislative leaders, Gov. Cuomo and city officials went on throughout the day, but the Senate and Assembly gaveled out just before midnight without taking action on the issue. The law allowing mayoral control expires at the end of the month.
Also in limbo are dozens of local taxes — including the city’s personal income tax — that need to be renewed by the Legislature but have become ensnared in the mayoral control deadlock.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) blamed the GOPcontrolled Senate for insisting that any bill extending mayoral control also allow more charters.
“That couldn’t be resolved,” Heastie said. “We are not going to pass a bill that requires us to do anything on charters.”
Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (R-Suffolk), in a statement, said he supported mayoral control but also noted that “50,000 boys and girls in Harlem, Brooklyn and the Bronx” are on charter school waiting lists.
“I will never stop fighting for those kids, and will not leave them without a voice,” Flanagan said.
Flanagan added he is willing to reconvene the Senate if a compromise can be reached on the issue.
Heastie, however, said he had no intention of calling the Assembly back to Albany.
The Assembly last month passed a bill that included a straight two-year extension of the mayoral control law as well as renewals for dozens of local taxes that the Senate GOP wants to deal with separately. The Senate this month passed three separate mayoral control bills that would extend the law by up to five years, but with various strings attached, including charter school provisions.
“We leave here feeling that we covered every single county and that’s it, so we are going home,” Heastie said late Wednesday.
De Blasio urged lawmakers to remain in Albany until they reached an agreement and warned that not renewing mayoral control would open a Pandora’s box for city schools.