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New York's state budget is late. That’s just fine with Gov. Hochul.
By
Jon Campbell
Published Apr 12, 2023
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Photo by Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images
By
Jon Campbell
Published Apr 12, 2023
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For six minutes on Saturday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul broke away from an Easter egg roll at the Executive Mansion in Albany to take questions about the state budget, which was already a week late.
“I will get it done,” she told reporters. “We will get it done together, and I'm more concerned about getting the right results instead of the timing of it.”
New York was supposed to have a budget in place by April 1, the start of its fiscal year. But in her less than two years in office, Hochul has made clear she’s willing to blow past that deadline in order to hold out for her major priorities, including further changes to the state’s bail reforms and a housing plan that would increase state control over some local projects.
It’s a move that increases her leverage in negotiations, since state law prevents legislators — but not the governor — from collecting their paychecks while the budget is overdue. There are few practical implications of a budget that’s a couple days or weeks late, so long as lawmakers continue to pass extensions so state workers get paid and the public’s patience doesn’t wear thin.
But the tardiness also leaves Hochul vulnerable to criticism from some lawmakers and political observers who say a late budget is a symbol of government dysfunction, made worse by the fact that the governor’s office and both houses of the Legislature are firmly in Democratic hands.
“I think it's about confidence in state government, confidence that the state government you elected can function,” said state Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt, a Buffalo-area Republican. “That the trains can run on time, so to speak. That things can get done.”
Rank-and-file state lawmakers aren’t due back in the Capitol until Monday, when the latest budget extension is due to expire.
I think it's about confidence in state government, confidence that the state government you elected can function. That the trains can run on time, so to speak. That things can get done.
Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt, a Buffalo-area Republican
Budget contrasts
Late state budgets are hardly a new phenomenon in New York. Negotiations in the 1990s and 2000s routinely stretched into April, May or — in several years — August before the governor and lawmakers reached a final deal.
But that trend largely came to a halt in 2011 under then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who made a point of prioritizing on-time budgets so he could point to them as evidence of government functioning properly under him. In 2014, he went as far as printing up custom baseballs to commemorate what he called a budgetary “grand slam” — four on-time budgets in a row. That streak would end the following year.
Last year marked Hochul’s first budget negotiation. She took a different tack from her predecessor, extending negotiations nine days beyond the budget deadline. It was part of an effort to scale back the state’s bail laws, which were reformed in 2019 to prevent judges from imposing cash bail in most misdemeanor and nonviolent felony cases. Hochul ultimately got some of what she was looking for despite resistance from Democratic lawmakers, including a measure making it easier for judges to hold repeat arrestees on bail.
On the campaign trail last year, Hochul and her allies — including former President Bill Clinton — pointed to the late budget as a positive thing: a sign she was willing to push her agenda.
“She held up the budget for nine days so that if you had a previous offense, you couldn't get cashless bail,” Clinton said at a Brooklyn rally in November.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie speaks with reporters at the Capitol on Monday, April 11.
Jon Campbell/Gothamist
Sticking points
In New York, governors routinely insert nonfiscal policy into state budget negotiations. And in her $227 billion budget proposal this year, Hochul made scaling back the 2019 bail reforms a priority again.
So far, her closed-door talks with legislative leaders have been largely stuck on her push to repeal what’s known as the “least restrictive” standard — a measure in the bail laws requiring judges to implement the least restrictive conditions to ensure a defendant returns to court.
The governor says the change is necessary to clear up confusion in state law, making certain judges know they have discretion to set bail in violent felony and serious misdemeanor cases.
Hochul has also been pushing her “housing compact,” a plan to create 800,000 new housing units by forcing local governments to meet certain growth targets over the next three years. Those that miss the mark will cede approval authority to the state when developers propose multifamily housing projects. In both cases, lawmakers have resisted her proposals.
Former Gov. David Paterson was at the helm of three state budget negotiations, from 2008 to 2010. The first, which came just as he was thrust into the office upon Eliot Spitzer’s resignation, was relatively smooth. The third budget wasn’t passed until August.
Paterson said Hochul and lawmakers still have time to hold out for her budget priorities. But that won’t last forever. At some point, the public's patience will run out.
In a poll released on March 27, Siena College found just 14% of New York voters said they were following state budget negotiations “very closely.” Another 31% said they were following “somewhat closely.”
“I don't see time as necessarily a factor at this point,” Paterson said in an interview. “If they were to get to something like mid-May or June, then you start thinking that it starts to look a little irresponsible.”
Asked last week what a late budget means to her, Hochul said she’s “always said I need to accomplish certain goals.”
“It’s more important to get it right, and I'm committed to getting it right,” she said.
I don't see time as necessarily a factor at this point. If they were to get to something like mid-May or June, then you start thinking that it starts to look a little irresponsible.
David Paterson, former New York governor
The April 1 budget deadline is set in the state constitution. But governors and lawmakers can get around it by passing temporary budget “extenders” — short-term bills that give the state the authority to spend the money it collects, which allows it to pay state workers.
So far, Hochul and the Legislature have passed two extenders, including on Monday. The most recent bill expires next Monday, at which point they will likely have to approve a third extender since closed-door negotiations between Hochul and legislative leaders appear to be gaining little momentum.
“The governor has made her points on what she liked to see and we, as a Legislature, are responding,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) told reporters Monday at the Capitol. “Has progress been made since the last time I was here with all of you? I'd say slightly, but there's nothing even close to an agreement.”
Impact of late budget
For now, with extenders in place, the late budget has had little effect on New Yorkers or local officials. The state’s bills are being paid, and state workers are being paid.
Some practical implications could soon be on the way, however.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is currently in the midst of putting together his executive budget proposal, which is due later this month. And he’s doing it without having clarity about whether city taxpayers will be forced to pay an additional $500 million toward MTA services, or how much the state will pay to cover the city’s costs for housing asylum seekers.
The state’s bigger cities, including New York City, operate on a fiscal year that begins July 1, which means most will have to have a local budget in place around June 1, said Peter Baynes, executive director of the New York Conference of Mayors.
“I'd say once the state budget gets into the middle of May, it becomes a budget uncertainty issue for the big cities,” Baynes said.
School districts across the state, meanwhile, are in the middle of putting together their budget proposals. Outside of the state’s five largest school districts, those budget proposals — which are heavily dependent on state aid — are put to a community vote.
In past years when state budgets have been considerably late, that’s led to significant issues among school officials, who were forced to put their budget proposals to a vote without knowing exactly how much money they would be getting from the state.
This year, however, state school aid is largely settled. Hochul proposed spending a record $34.5 billion on schools this year, and lawmakers are largely on board. That’s a change from most years, when governors and lawmakers have battled over education funding until the moment the budget is passed.
“It’s always best-case scenario to know your state aid, and typically we've seen in years past districts would run through different scenarios when the Legislature and governor each had different proposals,” said David Albert, a spokesperson for the New York State School Boards Association. “But we're seeing something a little bit different this year.“
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Jon Campbell
Jon Campbell covers the New York State Capitol for WNYC and Gothamist. Prior to that, he covered the Capitol for more than a decade for the USA TODAY Network. He has twice earned the Walter T. Brown Memorial Award, an honor given annually by the Legislative Correspondents Association alumni for outstanding state government coverage. Jon grew up in the Buffalo area and graduated from the University at Albany. Got a tip? Email Jon at [email protected] or Signal at JonCampbellNY.90.
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