Surprise. The State of New York meets its deadline and passes a budget.

Surprise. The State of New York meets its deadline and passes a budget. The Governor is happy. Is anyone else?

  1. The temporary 2% real estate tax cap was made permanent.
  2. A plan for reorganizing governance of the MTA was mandated
  3. Congestion pricing with an $11 fee for vehicles entering Manhattan south of 61st Street passed as part of a plan for an increase of billions to stabilize funding
  4. School aid increased; Foundation Aid by $618 million plus additional aid to bring the total over one $1 billion.
  5. Criminal justice reforms including elimination of cash bail in most cases
  6. Millionaire’s tax renewed the millionaire’s tax for five years, but a still higher tax on millionaires failed
  7. One time real estate transfer tax and one time “mansion” tax replaced a proposed permanent pied-a-terre tax
  8. Single payer health care was abandoned
  9. Marijuana legalization, abandoned, but three hours paid leave to vote was added
  10. Public funding of elections was abandoned, replaced by a Commission charged with making recommendations.

Progressive Democrats were disappointed because some proposals were abandoned and they didn’t have any involvement in the decision=making process. Progressives blamed the Governor.

Blame New York’s three men in a room budget process that relies on the Governor, the House Speaker, and the Senate President deciding what the budget would be.

A process where the legislature does its job would involve the following:

  • The Assembly passing a budget
  • The Senate passing a budget
  • The two Houses reconciling their budgets.
  • The Assembly and the Senate passing the same budget.
  • The Governing signing or vetoing all or parts of the budget

How about a process where the Assembly and the Senate pass budgets?