It’s (finally) budget time

There’s finally white smoke in Albany.

Lawmakers finished passing the $254 billion state budget late Thursday evening, almost a full 38 days after the April 1 deadline when the spending plan was due. It’s also 10 days after Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a “general agreement.”

The spending plan is now officially the latest budget legislators passed since 2010, and the fourth tardy budget in a row for Gov. Kathy Hochul. But the long delay didn’t stop the celebratory mood among Democrats upon bringing the stalled process to a close, nor did it prevent Hochul from racking up a number of victories in arguably her most policy-heavy budget yet.

Speaking on the floor of the state Senate after her members finished voting, state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins downplayed the particularly delayed budget process this year. “I know that we can talk about process, we can talk about lateness,” she said in a closing speech. “But in this moment, I want to talk about contrast. Because while here in New York, we've spent the last month fighting for working families, in Washington under the current leadership, it seems to be doing the opposite.” Stewart-Cousins mentioned several affordability measures in the budget, including universal free school meals at public schools and a middle class tax cut that will be phased in over two years.

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, who did not speak on the floor, did not even mention the budget’s tardiness in a brief statement about passage. “This budget invests in our people and in our state,” he said.

Hochul dominated budget negotiations this year, managing to achieve some version of nearly all of her top policy priorities. She held up the spending plan for weeks over changes to the state’s discovery law, something that many Democratic legislators strongly opposed. While lawmakers did manage to water down her original proposal, Hochul has spent the past week declaring victory on the measure. Her affordability agenda got passed – including slightly smaller “inflation rebate” checks that few thought were a good idea – and she succeeded in getting a bell-to-bell cellphone ban in schools as well as compromises on her two other top policy priorities. 

State Senate Deputy Majority Leader, speaking to reporters, didn’t openly criticize the governor when asked about the working relationship between her and legislators. But he acknowledged that lawmakers have had “rocky” relationships with executives plenty of times. “We’re not here to be friends with other stakeholders,” Gianaris said. And he expressed concern over the trend of later and later budgets under Hochul. “I think we're pushing the outer limits of when it becomes a real problem,” he said. “Hopefully, it won't get any further.”

Other lawmakers were more open with their dissatisfaction with the process. “It is both irresponsible and upsetting that the Executive Branch has taken such an adversarial stance with the Legislature despite an acute need to work together as a party and as a State to combat the attacks from Trump and his MAGA agenda,” state Sen. Gustavo Rivera said in a statement. He advocated for the passage of the Budget Equality Act, a proposed constitutional amendment to structurally change how the budget gets done to give the Legislature more power.

State Sen. James Skoufis used even more direct language speaking on Wednesday during debate for one of the budget bills. “This governor seems to think she is a monarch, of sorts,” he said, calling the process “undemocratic” and “deeply, deeply broken.” Skoufis continued with a Revolutionary War theme. “We don’t have to throw tea into a harbor, we just have to have the guts to stand up for ourselves as a Legislature.”