NY State Legislature avoids government shutdown

As is often the case in Albany’s budget dance, negotiations have been one step forward, one step back.

The sides continue to work toward a final budget, and the 213-seat Legislature won’t get paid until there’s a final agreement.

Meanwhile, one lobbyist said he had heard that Cuomo had floated the idea of passing a one-year extender budget bill, which would essentially leave out any of their big-ticket items for the time being. While my conference has continued to champion real issues like Raise the Age and ethics reforms despite being locked out of negotiations, the Senate majority has yet to release full budget language to review.

Assembly Democrats want nearly all cases involving youth to start in family court, while Senate Republicans want to keep most violent felony cases in criminal court.

“I care about lowering property taxes to help seniors and hardworking families across NY”, said Congressman Tom Reed.

“We’re still having full-blown discussions”, he said late Friday.

Those policies include raising the age of criminal responsibility to 18. “I’m just trying to make sure that government isn’t shut down”. “I don’t know”, said Assemblyman Gary Pretlow, D-Mount Vernon.

School aid is also uncertain. “We have been talking about it in a very earnest way; I think its been very productive”, he continued.

Some lawmakers knocked the stalled talks, putting blame on Cuomo, who is considered a potential presidential candidate in 2020. They’re close to getting this budget done. “The focus is on his political future”.

An emergency extender will keep state-funded institutions and services running by keeping the state’s cash flows at the levels they’ve been at for the a year ago.

Now he is grappling with the latest budget since he took office in 2011.

“Policy issues should be discussed outside the budget”, he told reporters.

“In this environment our state budget takes on much greater significance”, Cuomo said.

“Passage of a temporary budget extension keeps state government operating and ensures essential public services will be maintained as we continue to negotiate several unresolved issues”.

Across town, another good-government researcher disagreed. “Thanks to Governor Cuomo for supporting this critical legislation so that NY receives the federal Medicaid support it deserves while providing relief to millions of New Yorkers and thousands of my neighbors”. “If he can not, by 2020, spare 1.5 percent to cover his state government’s share of Medicaid costs, it will be remembered as another broken promise to Upstate New York”. During a visit to Jamestown on Friday, Reed, R-Corning, said he was pleased to see the governor announce his support to a proposal that “essentially tries to achieve the same thing”.

Cuomo and legislative leaders have agreed most of the age group should be moved out of the adult system. “They authorized almost $9 billion in more debt without any taxpayer approval and there was no way I was going to support that”.

“The Trumpcare legislation is really a phony legislation, it’s a shell game, it’s robbing Peter to pay Paul and wouldn’t have benefitted NY the way our bill does now”, said Rep. Paul Tonko (D-Amsterdam), who was also in on the call.