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CityAndStateNY.com
April 4, 2022
expanding health care for undocumented immigrants and funding for child care, and even less controversial things, have stalled as bail dominates the conversation.
“Can I say everything’s locked down? No. But we are very close on a lot of the issues.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul will be working with state legislative leaders to get a “timely” budget, even if it wasn’t passed on time before the April 1 deadline.
DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR BUDGET IS?
The April 1 deadline for lawmakers and the governor to reach a deal on a new state budget has come and gone with no fiscal plan in sight. In fact, legislative leaders sent members home for the weekend without taking a
vote, with the expectation that when they returned for session on Monday, they would be ready to approve a budget. When lawmakers left town, state leaders had few if any details pinned down, with changes to the 2019 bail law at the center of discussions. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s introduction of a 10-point criminal justice
– state Senate Majority Leader Andrea StewartCousins, speaking about the state budget hours before lawmakers missed the deadline to pass it, via Gothamist
plan that included further rollbacks to bail reform upended negotiations late in the game, and little has budged as state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie continue to resist significant changes to bail. Talks around other contentious issues, like
NIGHT AT THE CAPITOL As state budget negotiations went past the end of fiscal year deadline last week, progressive Democratic lawmakers weren’t taking any slights to their legislative priorities lying down – even if it appeared that way at a sleep-in at the state Capitol. Assembly Members Yuh-Line Niou and Marcela Mitaynes were among those who camped out in sleeping bags while advocating for “Coverage for All,” among other priorities.
“What are we doing?” – state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, expressing frustration with a new proposal to reform ethics oversight in the state, via the Times Union
Hochul announced a deal to build a new Buffalo Bills stadium that put the state on the hook for $600 million, yet another wrench in the budget talks. The state-subsidized stadium was met with backlash fairly quickly from lawmakers, editorial boards, government watchdog groups and other organizations for both the rollout of the deal as well as the amount of taxpayer dollars the state would give to the billionaire owners of the Bills. Some also questioned the governor’s involvement in the negotiations given that her husband, Bill, works as counsel to the company that operates most of the concessions in the existing stadium. Hochul, however, celebrated it as a victory for the state and Western New York since it would ensure the football team would remain in New York for decades to come, generating economic benefits for the region. She also said that very few tax dollars would go to the stadium because longoverdue casino revenues from the Seneca Nation would cover most of the bill. Days before announcing the deal, Hochul used a hardball tactic to settle
MIKE GROLL/OFFICE OF GOV. KATHY HOCHUL; SENATE; ALESSANDRA BIAGGI FOR STATE SENATE; ZACH WILLIAMS; ED JONES/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
BILLS, BILLS, BILL(S)
