April 8, 2025
(Dan Clark, Capitol Confidential, 4/8)
Status of Budget Negotiations:
Happy one-week anniversary of the start of New York’s fiscal year. We do not yet have a state budget and one is not expected to come together this week.
“I really wish I could say we’re further along but I think we are stuck about where we were last week,” Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said Tuesday. “We are at the very beginning of the end with what I would label as a pause.”
Both Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie said Tuesday that discussions on policy items — old and new — are to blame.
“It seems that every day we have new policies being brought up,” Stewart-Cousins said. “Like I say, nature abhors a vacuum. Apparently budgets abhor vacuums as well.”
Lawmakers expect to approve another budget extender Thursday and head home until next week. Another extender is due a week from today.
There is some good news: Heastie, Stewart-Cousins and Gov. Kathy Hochul have coalesced around a proposal to raise new revenue to help fund the MTA’s $68 billion capital plan.
That proposal will now be presented to members. If they like it, that could be finalized relatively quickly.
“On the list of must-do’s, that one I think has probably been resolved,” Heastie said. “We just probably all have to initial the proposal at this point.”
Heastie said that, because he hasn’t spoken to members about it, he didn’t want to give out details just yet.
Paying off the state’s $6 billion in unemployment insurance debt is “very much on the table” but could be complicated by current economic conditions, Heastie said.
New York generates a lot of revenue from Wall Street. The personal income tax revenue for the state from the securities industry was $19.4 billion last fiscal year, according to the state comptroller’s office. If the stock market continues to suffer, so will the state’s revenue.
“It’s not been taken off the table but you always have to look at a budget and how it affects the financial plan,” Heastie said.
Involuntary commitment deal close, could incorporate Daniel’s Law
Several sources told me today that elements of Daniel’s Law are being discussed as part of an agreement on involuntary commitment.
Hochul wants to change the standards for when someone with a mental illness is involuntarily committed to the hospital. Lawmakers want to tread lightly there out of concerns for civil rights.
That’s where we last left off. They’re now close to a deal, Heastie said.
“There’s been progress on that but it’s not closed down,” Heastie said.
Two areas where we’ve seen progress, Heastie said, include a need for people to be given a discharge plan to continue treatment after their hospitalization and the ability for some counties to create crisis response teams.
The latter would be the part pulled from Daniel’s Law, named after Daniel Prude. He died after he was restrained by police during a mental health and substance use crisis.
That inspired Daniel’s Law, which would chart a path to having teams without police respond to calls like that. Those teams would include medical and mental health professionals that could figure out how to resolve the situation.
At this point, there’s a consensus that something will be in the budget on involuntary commitment, whether those items remain or not.
“I think we can get there,” Stewart-Cousins said.
Advocates representing mental health professionals that contract with the state, meanwhile, have been trying to convince lawmakers to fight hard for a 7.8% cost of living adjustment in budget talks. Hochul is proposing a 2.1% increase.
Odds and ends
There continues to be strong opposition to Hochul’s proposal to create a new criminal charge for when someone uses a mask to conceal their identity while harassing someone.
But it’s still very much on the table. There’s no update there for now. Talks will continue.
Hochul on Monday pitched legislation to Heastie and Stewart-Cousins that would require candidates for governor and lieutenant governor to run together on a ticket in the primary.
Current law has candidates for those jobs run separately in the primary and then join as a ticket in the general election. This would basically make them ride-or-die.
“We briefly spoke about it,” Stewart-Cousins said, referring to her conference. “There’s mixed feelings about it but, again, it’s something we will consider.”
It hasn’t been conferenced in the Assembly, Heastie said.
They haven’t come to an agreement on a new Foundation Aid formula, which is what the state uses to decide how much aid to send to districts each year. That conversation will come after the larger policy items are done.
“I’m not worried about that being figured out either,” Heastie said. “But, again, it’s in the back seat because we have to figure out policy.”
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And this is what Politico is saying about the state of budget negotiations:
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BUDGET STANDSTILL: Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins says state budget negotiations are completely “stuck” — and she’s blaming Gov. Kathy Hochul. “I really wish that I could say we’re further along, but I think we are stuck about where we were last week,” Stewart-Cousins said while speaking with reporters today. “There’s a lot of policy being discussed, and it seems that every day we have new policies being brought up.” The leader lamented Hochul’s decision to insert at least two last-minute proposals into negotiations over a spending plan that is now eight days late. On Monday, POLITICO Pro reported Hochul intends to jam through a proposal that would change the way lieutenant governor’s are elected in the state. Hochul, who’s leery of her defiant Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado, wants the LG to run on a joint ticket with governors instead of on their own ballot line.Delgado has repeatedly undermined his boss over the last year while touting the fact he was elected on his own. He called on Biden to step out of the presidential race last summer while Hochul was among his biggest supporters. He said Mayor Eric Adams should resign before Hochul announced plans to sanction Adams. And he announced in February that he would not seek a second term as LG, leaving the door open to his own gubernatorial run.Less than two weeks before the budget was due, Hochul also brought forward a separate proposal to restrict masks, something she had called for last summer, but left out of her executive budget proposal before reviving the issue late last month. That, too, has thrown a wrench into budget talks, which a month ago looked as if they’d be relatively placid.“Governor Hochul continues to stand firm on her key priorities as she negotiates in good faith with the Senate and Assembly to pass a budget that makes New York safer and more affordable,” Hochul spokesperson Avi Small said in a statement.The governor’s team told Playbook last week she plans to keep lawmakers in Albany — despite their scheduled two-week vacation — to pass budget extenders until a spending plan is finalized. Stewart-Cousins said today lawmakers are ready to spend spring break in Albany.“We have to continue to keep the government running, which is what we will do,” she said. “We will obviously be available to do that. We understand our responsibility.”The governor has made no bones about letting the budget run late, telling reporters “summers are nice here too” and that she’s “not in any rush.” She even said a late budget serves her well: “I’m very successful in overtime,” she said. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, who also spoke with reporters this afternoon, said negotiations over the governor’s “bell-to-bell” cell phone ban are finished, and that discussions on the governor’s policy to lower the standard for involuntary commitment of the mentally ill are nearing a resolution. But many in his conference still have major issues with Hochul’s proposal to change discovery law and restrict mask-wearing.He also agreed the governor’s insistence on policy is to blame for the late budget.“Governors use the leverage of not getting a budget done till they get their policy initiatives,” he said. “This is why year after year after year, budgets are late. It’s never late because of the numbers.” — Jason Beeferman |
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A bill on the agenda of the Assembly Health Committee threw some lobbyists and trade groups into a panic this week. They’re now breathing a sigh of relief.
The bill would ban the sale of flavored nicotine pouches, which users tuck in their mouths against their gums. They don’t have tobacco in them. There are plenty of different brands but the one you might know is called ZYN.
The bill was scheduled to be considered Tuesday by the Assembly Health Committee, which was expected to move it. But that didn’t happen.
Assembly Health Chair Amy Paulin said she wants to give the industry time to prove it wouldn’t market to children. If they do, the bill will be back.
“We’re going to give the tobacco companies, represented by many of the people in the room here, the chance to do something they’ve never been able to accomplish before, which is to hold to that promise to the community that we’re not marketing to kids,” Paulin said.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved marketing for those pouches in January, saying the health benefits for smoking cessation outweighed the potential risks. The agency said it would continue to monitor practices in the industry.
The idea behind a ban would be to prevent products attractive to children from staying in stores. The sponsors argue that children might be more likely to use a nicotine pouch if it has a fun flavor. Then they’re hooked.
“We’re going to be watching and if we see any bubble gum flavors, any juicy fruit flavors, any flavors that kids like, we will put this bill back on,” Paulin said. “But we’re giving it a shot.”