NYS Senate Passes FY 2011-2012 Budget

New York State Senate Chamber

Addabbo: "On-Time Budget Has Tough Cuts, Required Tough Choices"

The New York State Senate has passed the FY 2011-12 Budget, which has been signed by Governor Cuomo.

"The severity of the economic challenges facing New York demanded a new direction, a new beginning to ease the burden on middle class families and lead our state back to fiscal prosperity all New Yorkers can enjoy," said New York State Senator Joseph Addabbo, Jr.

"Now that the budget is complete, we hope the spirit of bipartisanship we have seen to pass an on-time budget will continue and the promises we all made will be kept."

"Our budget made the tough cuts and tough choices for all New Yorkers, in order to find the common ground and bipartisan solutions to the crisis we all face. These were not easy choices, but neither are the choices facing families across the state. And we have to balance our checkbook like those families," Addabbo noted.

"Bottom line: we can’t spend more than we have and we can’t shift the burden to taxpayers nor can we borrow any money that adds to the deficit."

FISCAL YEAR 2011-2012 NEW YORK STATE BUDGET

GENERAL THEME: A Tough Budget for Tough Times and a Vision for the Future:

· New York State has reached a crossroads. We need good-paying jobs, smart economic development, a strong investment in vital services like education and health care, and efficient government that steers taxpayer dollars to the needs of the people.

· This was a tough budget for tough times, and so we tough choices that set the table for the kind of state government our families deserve and Albany needs.

· The severity of the economic challenges facing New York demanded a new direction, a new beginning to ease the burden on families and lead our state back to fiscal prosperity all New Yorkers can enjoy.

· As we move into the remainder of this legislative session, we must work in a bipartisan manner to pass an ethics package that restores faith in the Legislature, a nonpartisal independent redistricting process, and an extension and expansion of rent regulations to protect the tenants in our communities.

OVERALL BUDGET REVIEW

· This year’s budget is $132.5 billion and will reduce wasteful spending overall by over 2 percent from the current year.

· There are no new taxes and no borrowing.

· It eliminates a $10 billion deficit, one of the largest deficits in the state’s history.

· The budget includes an approximate $3.6 billion decrease in year-to-year spending.

· We passed an on-time budget, thus avoiding both the shutdown of state government and the drastic, extreme proposed cuts in the Governor’s Executive Budget.

· This budget will establish regional economic development councils, bring performance funding to education, redesign Medicaid, and cap next year’s education and Medicaid spending.

- The budget reduces the size and cost of government, by authorizing Governor Cuomo’s Spending and Government Efficiency Commission to reduce the number of agencies and commissions making our government more efficient.

· The state budget includes your tax dollars and it is my obligation to explain it to you. If after reading these budget points, you have any questions, please call me at my district office.

HIGHLIGHTS (Some of the Good Parts):

· Governor Cuomo deserves credit for exercising strong leadership, and helping to usher in a new dynamic to the budget process that delivered an on-time budget for the people of New York.

· The budget we passed did not raise taxes, reduced spending to meet the demands of these difficult times, and consolidated agencies to deliver a government that works better and costs less.

· We restructured the budget process to radically reform how we spend taxpayer dollars to change the flawed ways of the past and better prepare for New York’s future.

· By rethinking the way Albany does business, we passed a responsible budget that creates good-paying jobs, reduces the tax burden and makes New York more affordable, while investing in key services families rely on.

· We were able to partner with our colleagues in the Legislature to win restorations for critical services, including Title XX funding for seniors, funding for education aid, funding for schools for the deaf and blind, summer school programs, funding for SUNY and CUNY, while protecting veterans programs

LOWLIGHTS (Some of the Bad Parts):

· This was a hard budget and hard choices needed to be made, but we must keep our eyes wide open to how those choices will impact families and the working poor.

· This budget did not raise taxes. Many legislators had hoped it did not give a tax break to true millionaires – 70,000 people making over $1 million dollars – at a time when over 3 million school children face deep cuts.

· We were successful making some education restorations, but I fear the education restorations didn’t go far enough – sacrificing the promise of tomorrow by delaying the fulfillment of the promise of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity.

· The budget reduced spending and we even restored vital funding for human services like Title XX senior centers and summer youth employment. But I wish the budget was more successful at cutting with care, so it would be balanced in line with our values to protect our most vulnerable citizens.

· NYC will lose about $300 million due to the elimination of AIM (Aid and Incentives for Municipalities) funding.

· The budget included cuts to library funding.

EDUCATION & HIGHER EDUCATION:

· Overall appropriations for education are $19.6 billion statewide.

· The budget provides a two-year funding plan and has permanent law changes to limit future school aid increases to growth in the New York State personal income rate, which will help reduce the state’s large gap between spending and revenues.

· The Legislature restored $270 million in education cuts originally proposed in the Executive budget, including $51 million to NYC schools. NYC school aid in the budget is approximately $7 billion.

· Funding for 4201 schools for the deaf and blind is fully restored, as is funding for summer school programs.

· Moving forward, education will be increased at a rate of personal income growth next year—roughly 4 percent.

· There is a 10 percent reduction to higher education, including SUNY and CUNY

· The budget funds SUNY and CUNY senior colleges at about $2 billion and $1.3 billion in new capital appropriations.

· There are no tuition increases in this budget.

HEALTH

· Total Medicaid spending including federal, state and local spending of $52.6 billion represents a decrease of $337 million.

· This includes a cap of $15.3 billion on Department of Health Medicaid state expenditures.

Medicaid

· Medicaid will be increased at a rate tied to healthcare CPI, which is roughly 4 percent.

· The budget includes a cap on State Medicaid expenditures of approximately $15 billion and implementation of the majority of recommendations by the Medicaid Redesign Team (MRT) to redesign and restructure the Medicaid program to be more efficient and get better results for patients.

· EPIC funding is increased by $22 million.

· The MRT reduction of $2.8 billion and the overall spending cap to the state will be enforced by the Department of Health’s “superpower” provision, whereby the commissioner has authority to make reductions during the year to enforce the cap.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Regional Economic Development Councils

· This budget establishes 10 Regional Economic Development Councils, chaired by Lieutenant Governor Robert Duffy.

· These councils will create a region-based approach to allocate economic development funds to speed up the creation of jobs.

· They will act as one-stop shops for all State-supported economic development and business assistance programs in each region, and will be supported with $130 million in capital that is reprogrammed from existing resources.

Recharge New York

· Recharge New York will enhance and make permanent the current Power for Jobs Program that will significantly boost the state’s economy by creating and maintaining hundreds of thousands of jobs.

· Recharge New York will improve upon the existing program by opening it to new participants and allocating a blend of stable, low-cost hydropower and market power for use by businesses that seek to grow and create jobs in New York State.

Strengthening Excelsior

· A total of $500 million will now be available annually to provide enhanced tax credits that will produce better results for New York’s economy.

· Businesses will be able to benefit from this program over a 10-year period.

· The Governor will make $70 million of these enhanced tax credits available to support the efforts of Regional Economic Development Councils.

TRANSPORTATION

· Transportation spending from all sources will total $8.5 billion under this budget.

· The budget provides operating support to transit systems totaling $4.2 billion.

· The MTA will receive $3.8 billion.

· The budget provides for an adopted two-year DOT transportation capital plan that balances core infrastructure preservation with fiscal necessity and continues prior year funding levels for the core transportation programs supported by the Dedicated Highway and Bridge Trust Fund, including:

- $501 million of Dedicated Funding for State roads and bridge construction (part of a

$1.8 billion construction program)

- $363.1 million for the Consolidated Highway Improvement Program (CHIPS)

- $16.9 million for Amtrak services and additional rail capital investments.

ENVIRONMENT

· The budget maintains the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF) at the 2010-11 funding level of $134 million.

VETERANS

· The budget maintains funding for veteran services, housing programs, hospitals and cemetery care.

NOW IT’S TIME TO GET TO WORK…

MANDATE RELIEF:

· We must work to reach an agreement with the Assembly on property tax and mandate relief to ease the burden on families and reduce the strain on local governments that threaten key services.

ETHICS AND REDISTRICTING REFORM:

· We must pass an ethics package that restores faith in the Legislature and gives New Yorkers a reason to believe in a New York where anything is possible.

· After breaking their promise to support independent redistricting, the Senate GOP must reverse course and work with us to keep the promise they made and pass a non-partisan redistricting bill to take the politics out of drawing electoral lines.

RENT REGULATIONS:

· The expiration of rent regulation laws pose a direct threat to the economic security and well-being of millions of tenants throughout New York City.

Photo source: Library of Congress
Permission: Public Domain