NY State Budget nearly one month late

PLATTSBURGH | State lawmakers are locked in policy battles over climate law, Tier 6 pension reform, school aid, utility cost relief and new taxes on second homes, amid other issues. Legislators approved an eighth budget extender on Wednesday, April 29 to pay state employees through Monday, May 4. The state budget was due on April 1. Reports from Albany and lawmakers suggest policy negotiations related to spending has reached a halfway point. The delay continues as school districts worked without final state aid numbers to formalize spending plans for 2026-27. State law requires School Boards and administrators to adhere to strict deadlines ahead of the May 19 budget vote. Schools throughout the North Country completed the task, and nearly every district stuck to the tax levy cap set by state formulae. AuSable Valley Central School has wrangled with a levy increase above the limit. Other districts are using large amounts of fund balance to offset program and staffing cuts. Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed $39.3 billion in state school aid in her Executive Budget, an increase of $1.6 billion or 4.3 percent. Every school would receive at least a 1 percent increase. The state Assembly and Senate prepared a One-House budget, proposing more school aid than Hochul. They suggested over $39.4 billion for schools, an increase of $2.1 billion to include a $1.4 billion boost for Foundation Aid. School aid runs provided by the State Education Department are based on the Executive Budget, but can change. Schools use that data to build a budget, minus final numbers. BUDGET TANGLED IN POLICY New York's tendency to make policy during budget negotiations has local representatives frustrated. Assemblymember Michael Cashman (D-District 115) said the budget is intended to be a fiscal document. "These continued delays further prove why the state budget should simply be the fiscal document it was originally intended to be. While affordability, healthcare, and other critical topics remain paramount, they should be addressed as individual legislative actions and not compounded into the state budget documents. "Just one example," he said, "is the common sense approach to stopping the EV Bus mandate. We are rapidly approaching a month-late budget, and there does not seem to be an end within reach just yet. I continue to be in negotiations with my colleagues in Albany and will always fight for the North Country's needs." State Senator Dan Stec (R-District 45) noted this is his 14th year in the legislature. Last year was the first time budget talks went into May. "Right now, we're about the second latest budget that we've had," he said in a social media video. "So far, the governor and the Democrat leaders have only agreed on a couple things. They agreed to raise taxes, and they've agreed that they want to spend money on and provide more protections for illegal immigrants. These are not the priorities certainly, in the North Country." The state came in with a $254 billion budget, he said. The governor proposed something over $260 billion. The senate and assembly democrats are proposing something near $270 billion. "This is not the direction that affordability efforts should be going in," Stec said. "They need to focus on the energy crisis and the cost of energy," he said, indicating support for Hochul's efforts to tackle high energy costs. "Good for her. I support that. I hope it's real," he said. Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins told reporters on April 28 that some agreement is in place for the deadline change in the state's climate law, the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (CLCPA). Having missed the 2024 deadline for emission regulation, environmental groups sued, forcing the state to reset deadlines. "I would say that we are approaching the end of the middle," she told Spectrum News One on April 28. Updates from New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) suggest the fight isn't over, "with little evidence of it ending anytime soon. "In what has now become an annual ritual, Governor Hochul has frozen budget negotiations in order to pressure lawmakers to agree to what are essentially non-budget policy initiatives. This year, those issues include proposals to change auto insurance laws, changes to the state's environmental review of real estate development, and to drastically change New York's Climate Law." NYPIRG said Hochul's plan to change climate law was never publicly released. "She did not include it in the budget, nor in her 30-day budget amendments. Her plan was not included in either of the legislative budgets. ... The upshot is we do know that she wants to weaken it, but the details? Not so much."

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NY State Budget nearly one month late

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