State Legislature passes bills to extend budget deadline until April 4

After both Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins previously told reporters last week that negotiations are progressing, but a budget deal was still outside reach ahead of the holiday weekend, Hochul put out a statement Wednesday night that she would be delivering a bill to temporarily extend the budget deadline until next week.

Before adjourning for ahead of the holiday weekend, both the state Senate and Assembly passed multiple bills Thursday to extend the deadline and keep the state’s finances running as negotiations continue.

“Since we are planning to go home today with Good Friday tomorrow and Easter on Sunday, it is not realistic that we will get a complete budget done by April 1,” state Sen. Liz Kruerg, chair of the state Senate Finance Committee, said ahead of the votes. “Nor should it be critically disturbing to anyone in New York state, because I am quite confident with the work we are doing today — both with having done an extender to ensure that state workers will continue to be paid, that specific issues that without the bills we’ve just passed might hit some kind of cliff on or before April 1 — that we are assuring the people of New York [that] government will continue as planned on schedule and that this slight delay should have no impact on anyone’s lives. I am optimistic we will get to a complete budget within some reasonable period of time when we return after Easter.”

While the bills passed with relative ease and speed in the state Senate on Thursday, the floor debates lasted hours in the Assembly and at times got heated.

While passing the debt services bill, which is typically the first budget bill to passed each year, Assemblyman Robert Smullen, R-Johnstown — along with other Republicans — raised the issue of the state’s debt burden and explained his vote in the negative.

“So, here we are — again, in another budget year — where we’re discussing debt service, and I agree that New York state ought to pay its obligations that it enters into. That’s common sense. That’s good business practices,” Smullen said. “But, what I don’t like here is the level of fiscal and financial irresponsibility that New York continues to go through year after year, assuming more debt, paying less off and — especially coming out of the pandemic, when the federal government gave New York state tens of billions of dollars in COVID aid — we didn’t think wisely enough, budgeting enough to go ahead and pay down our existing debts so our citizens in the out years wouldn’t have to pay interest.”

Assemblyman Phil Steck, D-Albany, pushed back.

“This is not the time nor the place for discussion of this issue. Flippant remarks on taxes designed to instill fear do not serve the public interest,” he said in response.

Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes also shot back at Republicans, pointing to Republicans in Washington D.C.

“While we all would like to be able to have a lower amounts of debt, we see the importance of providing for many essential services like improving school buildings, improving and maintaining capital investments,” the Democrat said. “So, this is not really saddling taxpayers with an unnecessary expense. And I would just point out that it’s rich to hear it from the other side of the aisle, when in Washington their party has a tendency to run up the debt and leave it for this side of the aisle to clarify and eliminate it.”

At one point, the debates were sidetracked after a Republican member criticized what he saw as a lack of policy to support law enforcement in state budget proposals, citing the recent shooting death of NYPD Officer Jonathan Diller during a traffic stop in Queens on Monday.

People-Stokes in response noted the Republican party’s presumed presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is currently facing 91 federal indictments and brought up the death of a U.S. Capitol police officer during the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection.

Following the back and forth, Assemblyman Chris Tague, R-Scoharie, rose to criticize the process so far.

“With all due respect, I didn’t come here today to talk about politics. I came here to pass the budget and I don’t believe we’re at that point yet. This is the second year in a row where we have no idea where or what the budget even is. You know — us in the minority — we don’t control the governor’s mansion. We don’t control this house. We don’t control the other house. So, it surely doesn’t lay on us. We came here to work. There are many days last week that absolutely nothing was done,” Tague said. “So, I do take the political stuff, the politics shouldn’t be in this room when we’re talking about the budget. Let’s come here. Let’s do our job. Let’s get a budget passed for the people of the state of New York.”

Despite the issues raised and objections, many Republicans ultimately voted in favor of the bills as they are necessary to keep the state running and with Democratic majorities in both houses, the bills were easily passed. Shortly after the bills were passed in both houses, Hochul signed them Thursday afternoon, as expected.

State lawmakers are expected to return Tuesday and the extender goes until Thursday. Last year, the state Legislature passed several extenders before the state budget was officially passed about a month late.