Lawmakers apathetic, yet unfazed, by sluggish state budget talks

State budget negotiations haven’t moved much in the last two weeks, and they’re not set to advance too far, too quickly, in the coming days. 

Lawmakers passed a $1.04 billion budget extender Tuesday to keep New York’s government running and get state workers their paychecks on time, and a two-year extender for the DMV to collect and deposit fees. Gov. Kathy Hochul set the extender for one week, or through April 7, as leaders pore over significant policy items holding up talks – including the governor’s proposals to cut car insurance rates and her last-minute effort to roll back clean energy mandates set under the state’s 2019 climate law.

“We’re at the beginning of the middle,” state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins told reporters in Albany on Tuesday.

Stewart-Cousins, who is part of three-way discussions with Hochul and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, said spending discussions were at that stage over two weeks ago, suggesting that the leaders are stuck. And senior staff and leaders have yet to debate higher taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers and corporations and a push to change the state’s Tier 6 pension system in three-way meetings.

While conversations have been plodding along, Stewart-Cousins said they’ve been productive – working to finalize creating a protest buffer zone around houses of worship and updating the state’s environmental review process. But Stewart-Cousins chuckled when asked whether lawmakers might vote on budget bills next week.

“We obviously still have a lot of work to do,” she said. “We really haven’t started on the real money part of the budget yet.” 

Legislative leaders aren’t sure how late this year’s spending plan, which will be at least $263 billion, will go past the April 1 deadline. Lawmakers won’t get paid until a budget is signed, and it’s unclear how many more budget stopgap measures will be necessary to reach a compromise.

“I don’t know how long it’s going to be – I don’t know how many more extenders there will be,” Senate Finance Committee chair Liz Krueger said Tuesday on the floor. “We are where we are. We are hoping negotiations continue.”

The Legislature still does not have language or the full details of how Hochul wants to amend the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act to delay the deadlines for its emissions reduction mandates or change the methodology for counting greenhouse gas emissions. Krueger said lawmakers have rumored proposals, but nothing more concrete.

“I wish I could tell you there was a specific proposal in writing to share with everyone, but we don’t have one,” she added.

Assembly Member Phil Steck, who’s against changing the climate law, told City & State the governor’s late effort to change the policy is “obnoxious.”

Assembly Member Anna Kelles, who’s fighting for her version of state environmental review reforms with fewer exemptions, suspected that forcing the climate law debate in 11th-hour budget talks was always part of Hochul’s plan.

“It’s irresponsible and intentional,” Kelles told City & State. “She would have no chance of doing it outside the budget. She’s been talking about it for years, but it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy because we have intentionally not implemented any one of the acts of the CLCPA.”

Kelles said the governor and state agencies have failed to implement cap-and-invest, which would have raised billions of dollars to build and operate renewable energy infrastructure. Kelles said cryptocurrency mining, which uses tremendous energy, has caused utility bills to rise – and state leaders failed to ban the practice. And last year, the state Department of Environmental Conservation approved permits to expand the existing Iroquois natural gas pipeline

“If we had done all of those things, we would have been on track,” Kelles said. “It’s just pragmatic, it’s just basic science.”

State Sen. Gustavo Rivera agreed talks aren’t going well, adding a final deal will take “too long.”

Progressive Democrats rallied in the Capitol on Tuesday to push for millions more dollars in funding for the Child Care Assistance Program. Lawmakers said the child care workforce needs more support to meet the plan for universal child care Hochul included in her executive budget.

“The governor’s investments were an early win, however, the big gap is the workforce,” Assembly Member Jessica González-Rojas said. “We are fighting for New York For All, we are  fighting to protect our climate law and there’s conversations about auto insurance policies. There’s a lot of pending items that are literally holding up the budget, but we don’t want this to fall off (in) negotiations. It can’t fall off because the governor’s vision to build toward universal child care won’t happen without the workforce.”

Hochul, who’s negotiating her fifth budget, is known for playing the long game to wear down the Legislature to get her way. And many lawmakers don’t believe Hochul can be persuaded to embrace higher taxes for New Yorkers making over $5 million annually, or a tax hike on the largest corporations – a push from progressives Hochul has routinely rejected.

The state Constitution gives the governor the bulk of the power in setting the budget, and Stewart-Cousins said legislative leaders have grown accustomed to Hochul’s negotiation style.

“Governors have a lot of power in this budget process,” Stewart-Cousins said. “It is why we have to deal with it the way we do. At the end of negotiations, we all get things that we want and are proud of, and I think New Yorkers are better for it.”