The next two weeks at the New York state Capitol are going to be very busy as lawmakers face the deadline for a new budget as several issues remain unresolved.
Religious leaders lobbied for inclusion of the millionaire’s tax in the state budget. Governor Andrew Cuomo has asked for an extension of a temporary income tax surcharge on New Yorkers making more than a million dollars. Republicans, who lead the Senate with the help of some breakaway Democrats, want to end the tax. Democrats who control the Assembly want to add even more, higher tax brackets for the state’s top income earners.
Angela Warner runs a food pantry at St. Vincent DePaul Catholic Church in Albany, which served 18,000 people last year, a 12 percent increase over the prior year.
“The expansion and extension of this millionaires' tax will go a long way to insuring that the most vulnerable can have access to the resources they need to live a good quality of life. I think of it as the anti- trickledown economics,” said Warner, referring to an economic theory popularized in the administration of former President Ronald Reagan. “Instead of leaving it in the hands of the rich to make donations, we’re giving it directly to the people who need it.”
The state budget often deals with non-spending related items. This year, there’s a push to allow ride hailing services like Uber and Lyft to operate outside of New York City. Rules governing insurance for drivers remain unresolved.
Several of Governor Cuomo’s former associates have been charged with corruption in connection with economic development contracts. The governor has once again proposed some ethics reforms. The measures would create a new inspector general to investigate alleged wrong doing involved with the awarding of contracts to developers.
Government reform groups say they are not optimistic, though, that ethics changes will end up being part of the budget. Dick Dadey, with Citizens Union, says unlike in past years, Cuomo has held no meetings with reformers.
“We've had no communication from the governor's office about ethics or voting reform, even though he made a big splash about it in the State of the State,” Dadey said. “We take away from that that they’re not that serious.”
Citizens Union is currently suing the governor over a 2016 law to make not-for-profits disclosure their donors’ names and addresses on an open website. Citizens Union, as well as other groups, say that could have a chilling effect on free speech and their ability to fund raise.
Dadey says he hopes the two are not related. But he does believe that the additional disclosure requirements, tucked into a bill passed last June, was payback for past critiques by government reform groups on the lack of ethics reforms in Albany. He says the groups believe the governor and lawmakers are trying to “silence” them for “constructive criticism”.
Citizens Union released a report on $4.3 billion in the budget that they say are spent at the discretion of Governor Cuomo and lawmakers with almost no details released to taxpayers. They also believe that the more than $9 million in economic development project grant awards needs to be more transparent to the public.
The former Assembly Speaker, Sheldon Silver, who is now facing a jail term, drew on one of those funds to make illegal payments to a cancer researcher who also recommended clients to Silver’s law firm.
The governor’s spokesman, Rich Azzopardi, in a response, got personal.
“Dick Dadey’s fragile ego aside, rest assured that work on the governor’s budget continues,” said Azzopardi. “Each one of the Governor's reforms has been discussed for months, if not years, with these stakeholders.”
And Azzopardi called Citizens Union, a group that began in 1897 to fight Tammany Hall corruption, “hypocrites for preaching transparency while suing to keep their own donors secret”.
With the deadline drawing nearer, legislators are starting the public conference committee meetings to discuss aspects of the spending plan.
The conference committees seldom make major decisions in their public meetings though. The key decisions are made behind closed doors at private meetings between Governor Cuomo and majority party legislative leaders.
