Governor Kathy Hochul announces 2022-23 State Budget deal

New York State legislators and Governor Kathy Hochul have come to an agreement on a $220 billion state budget.

Hochul announced the agreement nearly a week after the budget was due. Lawmakers were expected to begin voting on bills Thursday night and finish those on Friday.

The agreement includes some changes to the state’s bail reform laws, the renewal of a popular pandemic-era rule that allows restaurants to serve alcoholic drinks to go, and a temporary halt to the state’s gasoline taxes.

The changes in bail reform include making several gun-related crimes once again eligible for bail, and to ease some of the timelines on discovery laws, which require that prosecutors provide defendants with evidence against them.

Hochul said there’s also agreement to amend Kendra’s Law, to make it easier for judges to refer mentally ill defendants to mandatory hospitalization or outpatient treatment. The agreement will also include funding for 1,000 additional psychiatric beds and mental health treatment.

The governor agreed with legislators to spend an additional $4 billion in the budget on programs, including expanded access to child care, although it stops short of the universal child care plan backed by some in the Legislature.

Hochul said home health care workers will receive a $3-an-hour wage increase as part of a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar package to raise the pay of health care workers. A plan known as Coverage for All, which would provide government-subsidized health care to undocumented workers, will be limited to those workers who are over the age of 65.

Hochul said the budget will devote 15% of total spending to the state’s rainy-day fund to be used if there’s a future economic downturn.

The budget will also include the suspension of two of the state’s taxes on gasoline, worth 16 cents a gallon, from June 1 until the end of the year. Hochul said the spending plan also includes the continuation of a middle-class tax cut and a property tax rebate.

New Yorkers ordering takeout food will once again be allowed to also order alcoholic drinks to go. The measure, which sunsets in three years, requires that all alcohol be secured in a container with a lid or cap. Full bottles of wine or liquor will not be permitted to be sold.

Liquor store owners, who opposed the measure, will get some concessions, including being allowed to open on Christmas Day.

The spending plan also creates a new state entity to oversee ethics. It will replace the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, or JCOPE, with a new commission that will continue to be appointed by the governor, Legislature and other statewide elected officials. The state’s law school deans will vet the choices.

Lawmakers were also poised to approve a deal that Hochul struck with the NFL and owners of the Buffalo Bills football team to fund at least $850 million in expenses for building a new stadium, in exchange for the team continuing to play in Buffalo for another three decades. Critics say the agreement, which could reach $1 billion when other expenses are counted, is too big a taxpayer giveaway to a well-funded league and the billionaire team owners.

Hochul defended the deal, saying some of the money will come from a gaming-related settlement with the Seneca Nation of Indians.

And voters will have a say in November on whether to approve a $4.2 billion environmental bond act that would help combat climate change.

Lawmakers are looking to add another $4 billion in additional spending to Hochul’s record $216 billion plan, but details on the final proposal remained elusive as sources speculated that negotiations could extend beyond Friday.

After blowing past last Friday’s budget deadline, Hochul and the Democratic-controlled state Legislature on Monday passed a last-minute budget “extender” to fund payroll obligations through midnight Thursday.

The delay is due to legislators hashing out details of the controversial criminal justice policy as well as “a host of non-budget issues that were thrown into the mix.”

Lawmakers in the state Senate and Assembly were on track to meet privately to discuss outstanding issues Wednesday evening.

One measure still on the table is the controversial expansion of Kendra’s Law, which permits court-ordered Assisted Outpatient Treatment, or AOT, and community supervision in cases of serious mental illness. The amended provision could include the involuntary commitment of people with mental illness following a judge’s decision.

Lawmakers are also close to a deal on rolling back the state’s controversial bail reform laws, mulling changes such as making more hate and gun crimes bail eligible.

They’re deliberating a measure that would allow judges to consider an individual’s criminal history to determine whether they could cause harm to a person or group of people.

For the Buffalo Bills new stadium, Hochul’s $1.4 billion project will be funded with taxpayers covering $600 million and residents of Erie County chipping in another $250 million. The teams’ billionaire owners, Terry and Kim Pegula, will foot $550 million of the price tag.

Measures still under consideration include:

• An extension of the pandemic-era “alcohol to-go” law
• Relief for high prices at the gas pump
• A plan to revamp the state’s ethics agency, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics
• More spending for home care workers, distressed hospitals, and SUNY and CUNY students.
• Increased funding aimed at combating discrimination against Asian-Americans

The New York Daily News reports the budget is expected to exceed Governor Kathy Hochul’s initial $216 billion ask.

Insiders said both the Assembly and the Senate were mostly in agreement on a framework for changes to the state’s bail and discovery laws, an 11th-hour request from Hochul that has stymied and slowed down talks.

Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie were expected to present the pubic safety proposals to rank and file lawmakers late Tuesday evening.

Criminal justice advocates, fearful that changes to bail reforms enacted in 2019 will lead to more people being imprisoned simply because they are poor, pleaded with lawmakers to reject any overhauls.

One legislative source said that moving past the public safety reforms will allow negotiations on other issues including child care funding and subsidies and a potential suspension of the state’s gas tax to advance.

While the state’s revenue bill was one of the measures expected to be prepared late Tuesday, the gasoline tax reprieve and Hochul’s plan to fast-track licenses for a trio of downstate casinos were not likely to be included. They could still appear in other budget bills later in the week, the source said.

An agreement appears to have been reached on an overhaul of the state’s beleaguered ethics panel that has so far failed to appease good government groups.

At the same time, sources confirmed that an extension of a controversial tax abatement for real estate developers that Hochul was seeking after a revamped version in her original budget proposal was rejected appears to be off the table.

The governor on Monday defended the secretive nature of budget negotiations, maintaining that everything has been “normal” despite the delays and frustration from lawmakers over the last-minute inclusion of her public safety proposals and millions in state funds for a new Buffalo Bills stadium.
Hochul also defended the deal she struck with the Bills’ billionaire owners that could cost New York up to $1.13 billion in state subsidies despite backlash from political opponents and lawmakers.

She said, “It is not majority taxpayer-funded, I want to be clear on that. The state share is 43%. So that’s not the majority, but that’s historically low for any public financing from the state.”

Governor Kathy Hochul delivers first State of the State

Governor Kathy Hochul delivered her first State of the State address Wednesday.

Hochul is proposing a $10 billion plan to grow the state’s health care workforce by 20% over the next five years, saying the pandemic worsened long-simmering staffing problems.

That includes more than $4 billion to support wages and bonuses for workers in health care and $2 billion for improved health care infrastructure.

Hochul spoke before a limited, socially distant audience in the Assembly chamber at the New York State Capitol in Albany amid the worst surge in coronavirus infections since the virus first hit the state in the spring of 2020.

She also announced initiatives including a proposal to invest $1 billion in electric vehicle infrastructure in coming years and up to $500 million in offshore wind port infrastructure to meet the requirements of a sweeping state law calling for 70% of electricity from renewable sources by 2030.

Hochul urged voters this November to approve a now-$4 billion bond act funding environmental projects, including climate change mitigation.

She’s also proposing $2 billion for road and bridge repairs, with a focus on replacing structures vulnerable to flooding.

To help ease the economic pain of the pandemic, Hochul wants to speed up a planned phase-in of $1.2 billion in middle class tax cuts that began in 2018. She also wants $1 billion in property tax rebates for more than two million middle-and low-income individuals.

Hochul proposed nearly $1 billion in funding for tax credits, seed funding and reduced interest rate loans for small businesses. She wants to boost broadband subsidies and access by drawing on $1 billion in public and private investments.

And with New York’s eviction moratorium set to expire mid-January, Hochul wants to offer free legal assistance for upstate New Yorkers. She said the state could help stave off homelessness through a five-year, $5 billion plan to build 100,000 affordable homes in urban and rural areas.

Hochul has vowed to restore trust in state government. She wants to replace JCOPE, the state’s ethics enforcement agency, with a rotating board of five members made up of 15 state-accredited law school deans or their designees. She also wants to limit certain statewide elected officials, including the governor, to two terms and put a ban on them earning outside income.

Other initiatives including making the state’s tuition assistance program available to part-time students and a Jails to Jobs initiative to help incarcerated people get and keep employment.

She said New York should address the uptick in gun violence by boosting funding for community prevention programs and gun-tracing efforts with neighboring states.

Andrew Cuomo

The State Assembly Judiciary Committee has released a report saying Former Governor Andrew Cuomo used extensive state resources and property to write a book on the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The report from attorneys retained by the Assembly Judiciary Committee also further substantiated claims of sexual harassment against the former governor and concluded his administration “was not fully transparent” about the number of nursing home residents who died of the virus in the early days of the pandemic.

The Assembly released the 63-page report eight months after first launching an impeachment investigation while Cuomo was still in office.

State Asssemblyman Andy Goodell said the use of state employees and resources by Cuomo was both illegal and reflects a miscarriage of resources, “During the Pandemic, we as taxpayers would hope and expect that our Governor was focused solely on doing what’s in the best interest of the public and not dividing his time with using state resources to write a highly profitable book that is a self-promotion of what he was doing.”

The report was intended to determine whether lawmakers would move ahead with impeachment proceedings against the embattled governor, who had faced multiple allegations of sexual harassment, workplace bullying, misuse of state resources and various other misconduct at the time.

Goodell said the extensive interviews and research done for the report cost the state an estimated $5 million. He added that the Joint Commission on Public Ethics revoked its prior approval for the book deal due to Cuomo violating the terms and conditions of that approval, “That approval was conditional on Governor Cuomo not using any state staff for resources and it’s clear that he did. One of the consequences of the revocation of the approval of the book deal is that it opens the door for the state to basically fine Governor Cuomo $5 million that he made on the book deal, which ironically would cover the cost the state incurred in examining that book deal itself.”

State Senator George Borrello issued a statement saying, “The release of the Assembly’s impeachment investigation report offers more confirmation of the harassment, duplicity, gross abuse of power and potentially criminal actions committed by our former Governor.

Evident in the report is the extent to which Cuomo and his aides strong-armed officials at state Department of Health, JCOPE and other agencies for the governor’s own personal and political benefit. These accounts reflect a truly Machiavellian mindset and underscore how profoundly New York, and New Yorkers, suffered under his leadership.

The report provides the most detailed evidence to date that the timelines for the book deal and the release of the figures on nursing home deaths directly intersected. More investigation, both civil and criminal, of this apparent conspiracy to hide the truth for political and personal gain must be a priority.”

Cuomo ultimately resigned in August after state Attorney General Letitia James issued a report concluding he sexually harassed 11 women, including nine state employees.

The Assembly’s report, conducted by attorneys from law firm Davis Polk, further backed up several of the accusations in James’ report, including one that claimed he groped a state aide.

The Commission will hire outside lawyers to investigate the approval of former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s $5.1 million book deal.

JCOPE’s Chair Jose Nieves made a public announcement following a private executive session of the commission. He said they voted to approve the retention of independent counsel to conduct an inquiry into legal and procedural operations of the commission.

At issue are claims that former Governor Andrew Cuomo used state resources to produce his book American Crisis as well as the claim that a staff member of JCOPE gave Cuomo approval to receive $5 million to write a book about COVID instead of having the Commission which is appointed by elected officials make that decision.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James and the Assembly Judiciary Committee are probing the book deal as well.

Governor Kathy Hochul has called for JCOPE to be replaced as well.

A new report from the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics places two education entities, at opposite ends of the reform argument, in the top spots in its list of biggest-spending lobbyists for 2014. The report also shows that 2014 was another record-breaking year for lobbying groups in Albany.

Overall, 2014 set a new record of $226 million in total spending ($15.8 million in advertising expenses) and $194.2 million in compensation paid to lobbyists, JCOPE reported. Lobbying spending in 2014 increased approximately 8 percent over 2013.

The pro-charter school group Families for Excellent Schools was first with $9.6 million spent on advertising and event-related expenses.

A distant second was the New York State United Teachers union (NYSUT), with $3.2 million in lobbying expenditures.

The two rivals remain fierce antagonists in the ongoing fight over education spending and the best way to turn around under-performing schools. The charter group has been a staunch and generous ally of the governor, who has described public schools as “one of the only remaining public monopolies” and slammed union leaders as self-interested enemies of progress.

NYSUT has assailed Cuomo for what it characterizes as unfair scapegoating of teachers. It charges the charter advocates and similar groups are working at the behest of shadowy Wall Street tycoons engineering a hostile takeover of the education system.