BY THE NUMBERS

THE NEW YORK EXECUTIVE BUDGET BY THE NUMBERS

Hochul’s executive budget included record spending on education and the largest capital plan to improve infrastructure in the state's history. Thanks to an influx of federal dollars, higher than expected tax receipts and a resurgent stock market, Hochul said her budget is balanced not just for the coming year, but for the next four years as well. And she pledged that the state would not rely on one-time federal aid for recurring spending initiatives unless there was a reliable state funding stream in the future.

The budget poses Hochul’s first real trial as governor and the first test of the cooperative governing style she has touted since taking office. She’ll have to work with lawmakers in the state Legislature to iron out the details and find compromise on areas of disagreement before the April 1 deadline. Here are some of the key numbers Hochul has proposed as the budget dance begins.

$31.2 B

The record high state funding for schools, slightly more than the $29.5 billion approved as part of last year’s budget.

The percent of the state’s operating budget that it will dedicate to reserves for an economic downturn. The percentage increase to school funding for Foundation Aid, a formula that takes into account inequity in quality education access and was not fully funded until last year.

15%

$2 B

The amount of money dedicated to unspecified pandemic recovery efforts. That could even mean the Excluded Workers Fund that Hochul did not address in her budget, per Budget Director Robert Mujica.

8%

GOV. KATHY HOCHUL PROPOSED THE LARGEST STATE SPENDING PLAN IN HISTORY IN HER FIRST BUDGET PROPOSAL.

By Rebecca C. Lewis

4

The number of years that Hochul has proposed extending mayoral control of New York City schools.

3

The number of additional casino licenses the state could potentially award.

$1 B

The funding dedicated to Hochul’s “war on potholes.”

$0

The size of predicted budget shortfalls through fiscal year 2027.

3.1%

The percent of spending growth compared to last year, not adhering to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 2% cap.

$216.3 B

The total spending for fiscal year 2022-2023 according to the new executive budget. That’s compared to the $212 billion budget approved last year and the $192.9 billion Cuomo proposed in his final executive budget.

Who are Hochul’s big donors?

New York has never seen a campaign finance filing quite like Gov. Kathy Hochul’s. She started fundraising in August, days after then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced he would resign, and she never stopped, bringing in more than $21.6 million in a five-month period.

Hochul’s campaign touted the haul as “the largest contribution total for any single filing period in New York history” in a press release that noted she nearly doubled the $12.8 million raised in 2002 by then-Gov. George Pataki.

The windfall further solidified her position as the front-runner in the 2022 Democratic primary for governor, with her biggest competitors, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Long Island Rep. Tom Suozzi, raising $221,996 and $3.4 million, respectively, according to the public filings.

Among the biggest donors were developers from Buffalo to Manhattan, entertainment execs and celebrities. Also pouring cash into Hochul’s campaign were hundreds of interest groups and labor unions.

The real estate industry was especially generous, with one of the heftiest donations coming from New York City commercial landlords the Rudin family, which gave more than $226,000 between their 845 Third L.P. corporation and five individuals, including $35,420 from Eric C. Rudin, the president of Rudin Management Co.

The Haugland family, which owns the Melville-based Haugland Energy Group, gave more than $209,000 between three family members. The company was recently awarded a contract on the state’s first offshore wind farm, South Fork. Big names from sports and TV to fashion and dining also appeared on Hochul’s latest filing. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld donated $50,000. Steve Cohen, the hedge fund manager who owns the New York Mets, and his wife Alexandra Cohen, gave a combined $136,700.

Tech execs were among the major donors, with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt giving $69,700 each.

Political action committees and labor unions were also represented, including two PACs associated with the Hotel Trades Council that gave $139,400. LAWPAC, the New York State Trial Lawyers Association’s political action committee, gave $68,700. Hochul also brought in at least $66,000 from political action committees affiliated with law enforcement, including $25,000 alone from the New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association, which represents correctional officers in state prisons.

Thirty-two individual donors gave the governor’s campaign, Friends for Kathy Hochul, the legal limit of $69,700, and at least 95 gave $47,100 or more. State law sets the contribution limit this year at $22,600 for statewide Democratic primaries and $47,100 for the general election, but some donors contributed it all in one lump sum. – By Sara Dorn and Jeff Coltin, with additional reporting by Rebecca C. Lewis, Holly Pretsky and Zach Williams

Our Perspective

Stop Denying Farmworkers Overtime Pay!

By Stuart Appelbaum, President, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, RWDSU, UFCW Twitter: @sappelbaum

Abusiness’s viability must not depend on the legally allowed exploitation of people which had originally been based on the color of their skin. That is morally indefensible.

This is why New York needs to correct the glaring injustice in New York’s agriculture industry where farmworkers are denied overtime pay after 40 hours.

Unlike most workers in the Empire State — and the rest of the country — New York’s farmworkers are currently denied overtime pay by New York law until they’ve worked 60 hours a week. This is a relic of Jim Crow-era labor laws that have historically treated farmworkers — the backbone of New York’s agriculture industry — as second-class workers. But with the proper action, that could soon change.

As directed by the historic Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act (which in 2019 for the first time gave the state’s farmworkers the right to organize into unions) the New York Department of Labor has convened a wage board to hold hearings and consider changing the state’s regulations to reduce the 60-hour overtime threshold for farmworkers. The wage board needs to recognize that farmworkers — who have proven to be truly essential workers during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic — deserve overtime after 40 hours, which has been long-established for almost every other worker in this country.

Just like all businesses, farms have financial concerns. But the industry cannot use these concerns to justify laws rooted in the darkest point of our history to exploit predominantly black, brown and immigrant workers. There is virtually no evidence to support industry claims that the difference between success or failure at New York’s farms depends upon the unjust 60-hour overtime pay threshold.

Even some in the agriculture business agree, including David Breeden from Sheldrake Vineyards in the Finger Lakes region. “You know what’s expensive for the coal industry, not having child labor, but we got past that,” Breeden said during one of the hearings.

Clearly, the farm industry will survive paying its workers fair overtime. The data in the nation’s largest farm state, California, shows that their 40hour overtime pay threshold has not corresponded with any negative impacts or shocks to the California farm economy or labor market. Farms in Washington state, where 40-hour overtime has also been implemented, are continuing to thrive.

Last year, the RWDSU helped farmworkers at Pindar Vineyard on Long Island become the first to win union membership. These essential working men and women are predominantly fulltime New Yorkers. They have families here that they care for and they have family back home whom they also support. They want a better future for their children and work to provide a safe home for them. They take pride in their work, and they want and deserve dignity at work.

This dignity can only be fully realized when these workers — whom New Yorkers depend upon every day — are treated fairly and enjoy the same rights as all other working New Yorkers. The wage board must implement a 40-hour overtime threshold for New York’s farmworkers, recognizing their contributions, and moving toward correcting the injustices they’ve suffered for decades. www.rwdsu.org