New York state lawmakers are scheduled to work through the weekend to try to reach a budget deal with Governor Kathy Hochul.
The new fiscal year started April 1st and a series of budget extenders have kept government operating. The latest one runs through Monday. Housing remains the top issue for Democratic Capital Region State Assemblywoman Pat Fahy.
WAMC’s Lucas Willard caught up with Fahy, a candidate for State Senate, in Troy on Friday.
Everyone thought things were in a better place. But housing is a must do. We need to absolutely grow our housing. Yet, we need some tenant protections because housing costs and affordability has gone off the charts throughout the country. So, we need to address the affordability, partly by growing it. Well, especially by growing housing, but also by adding in those protections. That is taking longer, because there's also labor wages that are a part of this. So, it's kind of a three-legged stool. That's taking longer, that's really at the leader level. We do not have the specifics on it, we hope to know more by Sunday, Monday.
Now when it comes to, you mentioned tenant protections, part of the conversation has been good cause eviction. Do you have any feelings on if that's going to make it through?
I think good cause, the term itself has become pretty a loaded term. I think we have to address tenant protections and tenant needs, especially among the low income, one, with more housing vouchers, just to make it more affordable for those low income. We need some protections in terms of counsel, a right to counsel and housing court, things of that nature. We need to look at how to minimize rent increases it because we have seen gouging in certain high rent areas. So, there are some but I think there are other parts of good cause, tying something to the CPI, the consumer price index is just going to, you know, if not done, it can have a chilling effect on growing housing. So you need you need to encourage investors. In the City of Albany where I live, investment in housing has come to a complete standstill for a whole host of reasons. But it's come to a standstill. So, there has to be a balance here, because we need to encourage more construction, more availability. Personally, I think we also need to look at ADU’s, which are accessory dwelling units, what used to be called mother-in-law apartments,
That must be complicated, because that is going to involve cutting a lot of red tape. And that's going to take a larger look at zoning and everything else when it comes to those accessory dwelling units. Is that something that can be accomplished in a statewide package?
It's not clear exactly where that stands right now. But I do think you need local control and input there. What works in some areas may not work in a high-density area. As you know, ADU’s, or accessory dwelling units, have been very controversial in the City of New York, especially because of basements. At the same time, because of illegal basement apartments in Queens and others – when they had the excessive flooding, now a year or two ago, we had, I think it was, 11 deaths – so, I think we do need to regulate it. So, in order to regulate it, you need to authorize it. And I do think we have seen serious, quite impressive success with ADU’s in some other cities. But again, it needs to be regulated. You need to address parking in high density areas. There's a lot of pieces of that that needs to be addressed. But that's partly where you need local control. Not all of these decisions can be made at the state level. And by the way, on good cause, I also want local input there too.
You appeared at a press conference just earlier this week talking about short term rentals. Do you think that's going to make it through in these final budget negotiations?
I have a call to make right now on short-term rental. We are pushing, I've carried that bill. I can't even believe it. I have carried the bill for seven years. So grateful to Senator Hinchey, who picked it up a few years ago and has given it new momentum. Three pieces of that. One we are trying to level the playing field. The only way to level the playing field is to have short-term rental hosts pay their state, their sales tax, state and local sales tax, as well as the occupancy tax as any hotel would be. So, we're giving them a disadvantage or sorry we're giving short term rental have an advantage over us. We also need to add in a registry. We know it's estimated to be a $1 billion industry. There has been explosive growth in short-term rental like Airbnb, which has taken a huge chunk of housing off the market, which is fueling the housing shortage. One is feeding the other problem. So, we need a statewide registry to really understand how many there are. We estimate a billion dollars. Most localities have no idea. So that is one of my absolute top priorities. Seven years is a long time to carry a bill
Beyond housing, are there any big items that you think, right now, are sticking points in these overtime budget negotiations?
Oh, absolutely. There's still, I understand, education is turning out OK. I have no idea where higher education is and I'm the higher education chair. So really driving hard. Did another event on TAP and SUNY and CUNY aid. So we have work to do there. But the other major sticking point, as has been explained by other,s is the Medicaid funding. I live between two hospitals that are really struggling with shortages, but also with funding and that’s St. Peters and Albany Med. So we've got to address these Medicaid costs.
And that also relates to the call for higher wages for home health care aides.
Absolutely, absolutely. It is easier to work at the local Panera Bread than it is to become a home health aide. And we have to address those wages. We're making some inroads on that. And that one, that is one that has a lot of bipartisan support. The only thing that keeps holding it up is it's got a huge sticker price on it. But I do support that. We've got to pay people to care for our most vulnerable, whether they are those with disabilities, or those who may be seniors.
Do these late overtime budget negotiations frustrate you? As a longtime lawmaker nominee, I'm sure it's not the greatest feeling to be well, what is now April 5th? And we still don't have a spending plan. We didn't have one last year until over a month after the deadline.
Yes, I should be a little more used to it. It's my 11th budget, I guess. But it's maddening. It's maddening. And part of it was I was a little bit gullible because everybody said this would be a slightly better year. Housing was the number one, usually there's 10 issues. And in the end, there really are hundreds of issues. Remember, these are these are a few thousand pages, the budget overall. But I bought it I was too optimistic. But you can't be in this business if you're not optimistic. Once again, I'm disappointed we're a little bit late. But at least things are moving and conversations are being had. And honestly, if we come out with a good budget, it's worth the wait. We need to address Medicaid, we need to address worker wages, we need to address housing. I want to address college affordability. I'm first generation, we must address the affordability. And we can't attract research companies like IBM, where we're here today, looking at IBM’s investment at RPI. We can't attract that if we don't have an educated workforce and we've got to invest in it.
If you had to place a bet on when a final agreement would be reached on a budget, do you have any dates in the calendar set?
I have a feeling we're gonna have a long weekend. Next weekend. Not this weekend. This weekend. We're coming back on Sunday. For the extender. We'll be here Monday. Next week is Eid, the end of Ramadan. And so, we are trying to be respectful of those holidays, as we are of other holidays. So, I have a feeling next weekend is going to be a very long weekend. But, of course, we thought last weekend would be too so either way it's moving
