{"id":26334,"date":"2017-04-08T05:03:34","date_gmt":"2017-04-08T05:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=26334"},"modified":"2017-04-08T05:07:00","modified_gmt":"2017-04-08T05:07:00","slug":"budget-deal-comes-together-albany-delay-frustration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/budget-deal-comes-together-albany-delay-frustration.html","title":{"rendered":"Budget Deal Comes Together in Albany, After Delay and Frustration"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBudget Deal Comes Together in Albany, After Delay and Frustration<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n<\/h2>\n

\n\tBudget Deal Comes Together in Albany, After Delay and Frustration:- After a week of impasse and the worst budget crisis of his administration, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo emerged from his Capitol office late Friday night to announce a deal on a $153 billion state budget that includes a plan for tuition-free education at state colleges.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSitting in the ceremonial Red Room of the Capitol, Mr. Cuomo said he and lawmakers had come to agreement on an array of big-ticket items, including changes to the state’s system of workers’ compensation, a priority for Republicans, and to its juvenile justice system, a priority for his fellow Democrats; popular issues like expanding ride hailing to upstate New York; and an extension of the so-called millionaire’s tax, on which Mr. Cuomo had hinged much of his 2017 agenda.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd while the budget was undeniably late, Mr. Cuomo said he was proud of it, calling it the “best work we’ve done” as a government.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe deal came more than six days after its midnight April 1 deadline and after the Legislature had been forced on Monday to pass emergency legislation to keep the state government operating. Days of negotiation had offered hints of a deal, but frustrations on both sides of the aisle had grown, with the Senate leaving Albany entirely on Wednesday evening. (Assembly members stayed in the capital.)<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe agreement, which still requires the approval of the Assembly and the Senate, enables the governor to claim credit for brokering a deal out of a fractious legislative environment. But the agreement announced on Friday evening — long after many in the state had tuned out the frustration in Albany — also marked the inglorious end of Mr. Cuomo’s streak of on-time or close to on-time budgets, something that dated to his inauguration in 2011.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tFaced with what Mr. Cuomo called the threat of deep federal cuts from the Trump administration, the budget also builds in a mechanism that would allow the state to respond to cuts from Washington, financial flexibility that would allow the state’s Division of the Budget to “correct the state budget for that shortfall,” he said.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tFor all of that uncertainty, Mr. Cuomo seemed satisfied with the “hardest budget” he had overseen, including a longstanding priority for liberal groups: raising the age of criminal responsibility to 18, a deal that had snagged negotiations on several occasions. Under the deal announced by the governor, beginning in October 2018, many 16- and 17-year-old offenders would be processed through family court rather than criminal court.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tBut Mr. Cuomo had also seemingly paid a political price for the practice of putting high-profile and often politically valuable policies into the budget process, a longstanding if contentious practice in Albany. Such issues were consistently cited as stumbling blocks for a deal, particularly by Republicans, and led to several moments of stalled talks.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe governor’s relationship with the Legislature as a whole was also put in sharp relief during the negotiations: Mr. Cuomo had effectively denied a raise to lawmakers last fall, and hard feelings may have carried over to this spring’s talks. The Legislature was not to be paid during the so-called emergency extender budgets passed on Monday, though the governor was — something that became another sticking point during talks.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tStill, the deal had more than enough to fill a news release, which was issued before the governor even finished speaking on Friday night. The college affordability plan, for instance, was a major piece of Mr. Cuomo’s social agenda, announced in January alongside Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The plan’s estimated price tag — some $163 million by 2019 — had been questioned, as was the number of students who might be able to use it. Initial estimates from Mr. Cuomo’s office put the number in the hundreds of thousands, but another legislative analysis suggested that number could be as few as 32,000 students.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tMr. Cuomo said that statewide school aid would increase by $1.1 billion, or 4.4 percent, a larger boost than the governor had proposed but less than the Assembly had hoped for.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe deal also includes a renewal of a lapsed tax-abatement program that spurs affordable housing.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe one glaring omission from the budget bills was ethics reform, an issue that has dogged Albany for decades and shows no sign of abating. Just last month, a Republican state senator, Robert G. Ortt, became the latest Albany lawmaker to be accused of corruption, alongside his predecessor, former Senator George D. Maziarz.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tBut there was a victory for some upstate residents as ride-hailing — a common convenience in New York City — seemed poised to be expanded to cities like Utica, Syracuse and Buffalo.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tMr. Cuomo called the delayed budget an “exhausting process,” including for lawmakers in the Assembly and Senate leaders, who had spent nearly two weeks straight trying to broker a deal.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t“I am going home now,” Mr. Cuomo said to a crowd of weary reporters gathered in the Capitol. “I will miss you all very much.”<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tSource:- https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/04\/07\/nyregion\/budget-deal-comes-together-in-albany-after-delay-and-frustration.html<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t