Deal is in place for $124B budget BY MICHAEL GORMLEY The Associated Press
Although they missed the goal of an on-time budget to help put an unprecedented month of scandal and turmoil behind them, the Senate and Assembly struck a tentative agreement Tuesday on spending bills in a $124 billion state budget scheduled to be approved today. The budget was due April 1. The tentative agreement negotiated behind closed doors would increase spending 4.5 percent and includes $1.1 billion in capital projects statewide. A record $1.8 billion increase in school aid — to a total of about $20 billion — is also included. And despite the nearly $5 billion deficit and declining revenues, the budget deal also includes $170 million in pork-barrel spending for lawmakers to direct to organizations and programs back in their home districts this election year. The state operating budget for this fiscal year is $80.5 billion, a 4.5 percent increase from the 2007-08 fiscal year, said Jeffrey Gordon, a spokesman for the state Division of Budget. Holding up a vote on the spending bills was a late agreement Tuesday on a legislative proposal pushed by one of Albany’s most powerful lobbyists: The New York State United Teachers union. The measure prohibits school districts from denying tenure to a teacher based on the performance of his or her students on standardized tests. The measure would have a sunset clause, ending the policy after two years. During that time a study group will be put in place to recommend further standards. The state School Board Association, which accused the union of trying to sneak the measure past the public, agreed to the compromise, according to a letter from its lobbyist. David Albert, a spokesman for the board association, said they haven’t seen the final legislation yet, but “the most recent version of the language we saw of the agreement would call for the Regents to establish minimum standards.” If that’s the case, local school districts could determine their own standards for tenure — and the board association supports that, Albert said. NYSUT has contributed more than $700,000 in campaign contributions to New York state legislators and political parties in 2007, according to the New York Public Interest Research Group. In the same year NYSUT spent more than $1.8 million on lobbying. “It’s Albany at its worst: Secret, late and special interest deals,” Blair Horner of NYPIRG said. Gov. David Paterson had hoped passing a timely budget would help put a tumultuous four weeks behind state lawmakers. Paterson has been on the job since March 17, when Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned after he was implicated in a prostitution investigation. “I think we are far enough along that I’m going to have a conference with the members tomorrow morning,” Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said Tuesday. “The Senate will have the same conference and I think we’ll be in a position to pass the budget in daylight tomorrow.” “It’s concluded except for some mechanics and printing issues,” said John McArdle, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.
CAPITOL Budget includes new taxes, fees Revenue estimates questioned BY VALERIE BAUMAN The Associated Press
The state Legislature passed a $121.7 billion budget Wednesday that will include $1.5 billion in new taxes, $205 million in new fees and $200 million in member items — or pork barrel spending — that politicians can direct back to their own districts. Legislators expect the state to raise $66.4 million from an optional new driver’s license or ID card that would add $30 to the current $50 license fee and give the user the ability to cross some borders, including Canada’s. Another $28 million is expected to come in from a new surcharge on traffic tickets and another $70 million will come from a new assessment on health insurers. For New Yorkers, this means they’ll have to spend more on identification if they want to go to bordering countries, and if they drive too fast along the way it could cost them $20 more for a ticket and $170 more if they drive under the influence. State officials don’t think the extra fee they’ve applied to insurance companies will be passed on to customers, but it remains a possibility. The budget doesn’t include new personal income taxes and it cuts local assistance programs — except for school aid and most entitlement programs — by 2 percent to save $270 million. “In the economy, we’re in the worst of times,” Gov. David Paterson said Wednesday of the difficulty in getting out the budget — which was nine days past the state’s constitutional deadline. He described the economy and the unique circumstances that made him governor less than a month ago as “twin storms” complicating the budget. Paterson took over March 17 when former Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned after being linked to a prostitution ring. State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli questioned Wednesday if the revenues lawmakers are counting on to cover the state budget will turn up. “Albany should keep an eraser handy,” DiNapoli said of the 2008-09 budget proposal. Budget planners come up with a spending plan in part by anticipating revenue from the previous year, and 2007-08 was “a volatile year,” he said. “Spending and revenue projections were a moving target all year and significantly deviated from what was estimated,” DiNapoli said. “The economy is in rough shape and the worst may still be around the corner.” DiNapoli’s preliminary revenue and spending results for the last fiscal year pointed to lower than expected business taxes, and general fund tax receipts $120 million below estimates. With that trend, the Legislature may have to re-evaluate its spending plans throughout the year. In past years when revenues plummeted, the Legislature had to return to Albany to cut the budget, including school district funds. “It’s a concern of mine, like it is of everybody in New York state,” Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said Wednesday. “I don’t think it will happen. I’d rather be optimistic and expect that pretty much the worst of what we have to do budgetwise and the challenges that we’ve overcome here in getting the budget done are behind us. What the future brings, no one can tell.” The budget, which was due April 1, increased spending 4.9 percent and included $1.6 billion in capital projects statewide. An upstate revitalization initiative will pump $700 million into the struggling region. Education advocates said kids are the real winners in the budget and that the historic $1.75 billion increase in aid will help more students perform better in the neediest schools. “We were able to keep a promise to the children of our state,” Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said. But the bloated budget and reliance on questionable revenue sources at a time when the economy is on a downturn could mean higher taxes and even bigger budget gaps in the future. Elizabeth Lynam, deputy research director for the Citizens Budget Commission, said the spending in Albany is out of control, and in the long run New Yorkers will be paying for it. “Eight months from now they’re going to be wrestling with a $5 billion-plus budget gap, in a situation where it’s likely to be worse because the revenues won’t be there,” she said. “The tax burden New Yorkers face is already the second highest in the country, and unless their elected officials take stock of the situation and get the pocketbook under control, the taxes will be even higher.” The state will get additional revenue through a number of new business taxes, including $429 million from closing what lawmakers called tax “loopholes.” Lawmakers expect to raise $250 million in taxes to put video lottery terminals into the Aqueduct racetrack and other developments that could include hotels
I couldn't believe the above article when I read how our NYS legislatures solved the problem of the budget deficit. Instead of cutting spending and eliminating the pork they went right ahead with their usual tax and spend approach to solve the problem. We are the second highest taxed state in the country and these arrogant self serving politicians just keep raising our taxes with no concern for the effect it will have on the states residents. It's no-wonder people and businesses are leaving this state in droves.
CAPITOL Paterson calls for ‘serious cutbacks’ in budget BY MICHAEL GORMLEY The Associated Press
Just a week after the current state budget was passed, Gov. David Paterson is pushing his idea to cut next year’s state budget by 5 percent to 10 percent. The Democrat in just his fifth week in office said declining revenues in a recessionary economy will force “serious cutbacks” in a year. The $121.7 billion state budget passed by the Legislature last week, much of it agreed to by Paterson, increases spending more than 4 percent and adds a record $1.75 billion to school aid despite a projected deficit this election year. He said last week that the “hardcore cutting” will mean a 5 percent to 10 percent cut “off the top.” That’s rare even for a pledge in Albany, where “cuts” usually refer to reduced growth in spending. Some recent budgets included spending increases near 10 percent. “It’s an ambitious target,” said E.J. McMahon of the Empire Center for New York State Policy, part of the fiscally conservative Manhattan Institute. “If you don’t propose an ambitious target and you don’t propose an actual budget reduction, you will not have the kind of spending restraint you need to avoid big increases in taxes.” McMahon said former Republican Gov. George Pataki proposed cuts in his first two executive budgets in the mid- to late-1990s. That forced cuts or negligible increases even after the Legislature acted on the budget. Since then, however, state spending has often been at two or three times the inflation rate. “I think the signals a governor sends are very important,” Mc-Mahon said Tuesday. “So far, he’s sending the right signal and he’s sending it consistently.” The Democratic governor met behind closed doors Tuesday with the Senate’s Republican majority and found a partner in taking a rare, hard look at how the budget is spent, said John McArdle, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. “We’re going to do something in the next several weeks to focus on the spending side,” McArdle said. He said that will involve following the money to see if there is waste and duplication of services. “We’re going to work with the governor,” McArdle said of Paterson, the former Democratic leader of the Senate. The Democrat-led Assembly will also consider Paterson’s call for cuts. “We’ll have to look and see what the economy does,” said Assembly Ways and Means Committee Chairman Herman “Denny” Farrell, a New York City Democrat. “And then we’ll deal with it.” On Tuesday, Paterson also gave some hints as to who would — and who wouldn’t — pay the price for the drastic pledge in worsening fi scal times. Paterson told cheering environmental activists Tuesday that he would make a goal of passing a bigger bottle bill that would require consumers to pay deposits for noncarbonated beverages such as bottled water. The anti-littering bill would also provide millions of dollars to the state revenues by collecting unredeemed nickel deposits. “We want to pass a bigger, better bottle bill this session,” Paterson said. The legislative session is scheduled to end June 23. Although the proposal has been blocked for years by the bottling industry and the Republican-led Senate, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said that might change. “Some people will say all it does is increase prices, it doesn’t clean up trash, and others say it gets some of the trash out of the landfills and recycled,” Bruno said Tuesday. “So it’s one of the issues we have to consider.” The Democratic governor also made it clear Tuesday that Albany’s powerful unions wouldn’t be targeted. “We are going to have to address what has been mismanagement and, at times, recklessness in the assembling of our budget,” Paterson said. “We are going to have to make some serious cutbacks. We are going to have to address these issues to save our economy. But we cannot do it by balancing it on the backs of individuals who go to work every day.” He was drowned out by cheers from hundreds of members of the Transport Workers Union and who Paterson called its “great leader,” President Roger Toussaint. Tussaint and his union marched off the job in 2005 in an illegal strike, halting buses and trains in New York City at the height of the Christmas shopping season. A judge fined the union $2.5 million and Toussaint spent 3 1 /2 days in jail for contempt. Workers were docked six days’ pay. Paterson wouldn’t explain his plan further on Tuesday. For the second straight day, he refused to answer reporters’ questions. He refused to respond to questions before, after and as he walked between meetings with the lobbyists on why he contributed just $150 of his and his wife’s $269,815 salary to charity in 2007. The disclosure was made Monday as part of the tradition of statewide elected officials releasing their income tax returns. “It may be that that he’s ridiculously busy,” said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group. “It’s only a concern if it’s a pattern.”
Last year my wife bought at least 244 packs of cigarettes from Stewart’s for a grand total of $1,240. At the same time, she bought me one $2 scratch ticket for every pack. That adds up to $488 in ticket sales. I don’t believe that my wife can stop smoking, she has tried many times; but I can give up lottery tickets, and so should everyone else. New York state and Stewart’s will suffer a net loss on their scam to fleece my family by raising cigarette taxes. Instead of all these stopgap measures to close the state budget gap, the state should do two things. Quit spending and giving away state taxpayers’ money, and raise the sales tax by an eighth of a point. It would fairly target everyone. EMIL HABESCH JR. Ballston Lake
Paterson orders spending cuts, hiring freeze Monday, April 21, 2008 The Associated Press
ALBANY — Gov. David Paterson today prohibited all but essential hiring in a sternly worded directive to state agencies. Paterson said that if his cost savings targets aren't met, he will impose a hard hiring freeze and other measures on agencies. He says he is willing to withhold budgeted funds if an agency fails to meet his cost-saving targets. The Democrat said the measures are necessary because of declining revenues projected in a worsening economy. Paterson required a detailed savings plan from each agency by May 16. "The reductions you propose must be achievable, recurring, and serious," Paterson said in the memo released Monday. "Your plan must reflect the creativity needed to provide the services the public expects at a lower cost. "Above all, you must rethink your hiring practices. Only job openings absolutely essential to your agency's operations and protecting the health and safety of New Yorkers are to be filled," he said. "Positions that do not fit this criterion must be left vacant. " The state work force stands at 167,172 employees, according to the state Department of Civil Service. This memo is different from similar directives by past governors to their agency heads. Paterson didn't choose these commissioners, but inherited them from former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who resigned March 17 after he was implicated in a prostitution investigation. Because they are neither his loyalists nor anyone who helped him in a campaign for governor, the former lieutenant governor might be more inclined to replace them. Paterson has set a goal of cutting the budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year by 5 to 10 percent before it's sent to the Legislature. Monday's memo is the first order in that effort. "There are several corrective actions that I am prepared to take," Paterson told department heads. "These include withholding an amount of budgeted funding needed to hit your savings target or implementing a hard hiring freeze at your agency. I sincerely hope and expect such measures will not be necessary." His plan faces several obstacles. Chief among them are the public employee unions that hold great power in New York, especially in the Legislature, which can reverse a governor's budget cuts. Most of the major public employee unions settled contracts this year that extend for several years. Civil Service Employees Association spokesman Stephen Madarasz hadn't yet seen Paterson's memo and had no immediate comment. The CSEA is the state's largest public employee union. Legislative leaders have said they will work with Paterson to reduce spending growth next year. Those promises came after they turned down $500 million of Paterson's proposed $800 million in spending reductions. The $121.7 billion budget adopted by the Legislature increases spending more than 4.5 percent this legislative election year and includes hundreds of millions of dollars in pork-barrel spending.
"There are several corrective actions that I am prepared to take," Paterson told department heads. "These include withholding an amount of budgeted funding needed to hit your savings target or implementing a hard hiring freeze at your agency. I sincerely hope and expect such measures will not be necessary."
here is the left hand of the monkey being dealt with.....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
"The reductions you propose must be achievable, recurring, and serious," Paterson said in the memo released Monday. "Your plan must reflect the creativity needed to provide the services the public expects at a lower cost.
Governor Paterson is sounding like a fiscal conservative. If his actions mirror his words, I may support his reelection bid if he chooses to run. I first have to find the Democratic Party line on the ballot as I haven't pulled a lever on that line in many years.
Paterson to focus on cuts to future state spending BY JOHN KEKIS The Associated Press
SYRACUSE — Gov. David Paterson, who aims to cut the next state budget by up to 10 percent, said Tuesday that the Division of the Budget and key members of his staff will begin work on proposals to reduce future state spending. Paterson also said he intends to take a close look at the STAR property tax relief program in the next couple of months. STAR sends about $5 billion a year in state funds that are supposed to reduce property taxes, but Paterson has noted that most school property tax bills continue to rise faster than inflation. “I don’t know of any changes that I can tell you that I want to make to STAR,” Paterson said. “I just know that when we put STAR in, property taxes went up 7 percent for five straight years. Our response as a government is to create more STAR.” To avoid the usual Albany ploy of limiting only the budget’s rate of increase, Paterson’s internal working group — including Budget Director Laura Anglin, deputy director Kristen Proud, senior adviser William Cunningham and other senior staff members — will develop recommendations for actual cuts. They will report back to Paterson before the end of the legislative session. Earlier this week, Paterson directed department heads to cut costs and restrict hiring. “The economic forecast is grim. We as a government have to tighten our belts and respond to the crisis that’s going on,” Paterson said in his keynote address to the Metropolitan Development Association, a central New York business group. “We’ve got to put a stop to this spending spree that’s out of control, that comes from that planet called Albany. We can succeed. It can be done through a collaborative effort.” Areas the group will focus on include: state agency expenditures on equipment, services, staffing and contracting levels; spending by public authorities; capital projects not needed to protect the public’s health and safety; programs funded by dedicated fees and fi nes that do not provide critical services; and discretionary local grants that may be more appropriately financed at the local level or privately, or not at all. The analysis will focus on state operating funds, which Paterson called the most accurate measure of state spending. Once the study is complete, the administration will seek comment from groups that have been pushing for reforms in the budget process. “This process will not be easy, but we must be realistic about where the economy is going and how New York can plan appropriately,” Paterson said. In 2007, former Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the Legislature provided a historic $1.3 billion increase in the STAR tax relief program for property owners. Yet school taxes still increased around the five-year average of 7 percent. Before he resigned last month, Spitzer created a bipartisan commission with investigative and subpoena powers to back up recommendations for a tax cap that he championed. The commission will also reconsider the state’s own unfunded mandates on schools and municipalities and recommend ways to cut waste in education without hurting instruction, as well as how to direct tax breaks more to middle class families. The commission, headed by Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, is due to release its report in the coming week.
Paterson also said he intends to take a close look at the STAR property tax relief program in the next couple of months. STAR sends about $5 billion a year in state funds that are supposed to reduce property taxes, but Paterson has noted that most school property tax bills continue to rise faster than inflation.
no sh*t sherlock-----we are either cloaking knowledge in money or someone is eating it.....what is that damn monkey on our back doing now????
there is a serious disconnect and it all started with me me me me and counter culture.......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Paterson also said he intends to take a close look at the STAR property tax relief program in the next couple of months. STAR sends about $5 billion a year in state funds that are supposed to reduce property taxes, but Paterson has noted that most school property tax bills continue to rise faster than inflation.
no sh*t sherlock-----we are either cloaking knowledge in money or someone is eating it.....what is that damn monkey on our back doing now????
there is a serious disconnect and it all started with me me me me and counter culture.......
and just as NYS was reluctant to agree to the declaration of independence so does it now promote the ideology of 'not needing to be independent 'cause the state will wipe your butt.....'
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
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