Budget stall may hold up paychecks
ALBANY — Roughly 39,000 state workers, including those at health care and correctional facilities, could see a delay in their paychecks if lawmakers don’t pass a budget soon, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli warned Thursday.
Cuomo administration officials and legislative leaders had yet to reach a deal on what will likely be a nearly $200 billion fiscal plan for the Empire State as of Thursday evening, despite blowing past a midnight deadline.
DiNapoli said that the first state payroll in the new fiscal year is on April 8 for some state employees. If a budget isn’t passed and in place by Monday, those paychecks could get delayed.
“Many are essential workers who must show up at work every day and put in long, hard hours,” DiNapoli said. “For the workers that get paper checks or have payments set up on direct withdrawal, I urge them to be mindful of the impact of a late state budget on their personal finances.”
The state’s fiscal year officially began on Thursday.
So far, lawmakers have passed just one of 10 budget bills needed to complete the process. A debt service bill was passed late Wednesday.
Several spending and budgeting issues remained unresolved, according to sources. The Legislature’s proposed $7 billion in new taxes on the wealthy and corporations and a request from the governor for billions in bonds to cover part of a redevelopment project near Penn Station were among items contributing to the current stalemate.
The administration is also at odds with the Legislature over how more than $12 billion in recently approved federal COVID relief funds play into the state’s financial future.
Discrepancies over spending for education and health care as well as billions in funding for immigrants and other workers excluded from COVID relief are also complicating talks.
Typically, the governor plays an outsized role in the budget process but a veto-proof supermajority and a number of scandals swirling around Cuomo have emboldened lawmakers as the state plots an economic course postpandemic.
Advocates and many rankand-file Democrats are pushing Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) to stand their ground against the embattled governor.
While Cuomo has shied away from the spotlight in recent days, his budget director, Robert Mujica, said the governor’s mounting problems are not affecting negotiations.