A late state budget was once an annual occurrence in Albany, much like the Tulip Festival, but that tradition came to an end when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo took office. There have been four on-time budgets since 2011. That streak could be in jeopardy this year as the governor is putting his demands for ethics reform in the state budget. On WAMC's Capitol Connection this week, State Comptroller Democrat Thomas DiNapoli told Alan Chartock what a late budget could mean for the state.
DiNapoli: “The biggest downside, and some of it is a question of how late it would be, what the duration would be, is that local governments, particularly schools, because they come up first with their budget votes, if they don’t know what their level of state funding is going to be how do they plan, how do they anticipate? And that was a problem in the years when you had those late budgets. It certainly sends a bad message in terms of the functioning of state government… Considering the fact that we’ve had these on-time budgets now for four years, there’d be a perception that we’re going backwards, and I think in terms of the psychology, how the rating agencies would look at us, that would hurt us. Again, in terms of the power politics, you could really face a situation where, depending on what the governor would put into emergency appropriations, he may try to put in his agenda in a way that the legislator will be stuck with. We vote for it and lose certain battles, or we don’t vote for it and state government shuts down. And we haven’t had that kind of a threat, realistically, in many many moons.”
Chartock: "You know, I do remember, Tom DiNapoli, I do remember… we were just talking about it on the radio. When things got so bad that the legislators wouldn’t get paid… and they had to be paid in what we called 'scrip.' You would put out scrip, right?"
DiNapoli: “Well, it’s interesting, that hasn’t happened for a long time. The years when… So, remember, the change to not have legislators get paid because of a late budget was a Pataki-era change that was tied to pay raise in charter schools; it’s interesting how certain issues keep coming back. So the scrip issue was also for state employees, but I think that goes back to the Carey days... I don’t recall if that was a threat, or if it actually happened for a short period of time. But we haven’t been in these waters of… even when you had the Pataki-era change where the legislators weren’t paid, you still had emergency appropriations that kept state governments functioning, state employees being paid. If you actually have a budget that expires and no emergency appropriations approved… you’re talking not just about just legislators not getting paid, you’re talking about vendors not getting paid, you’re talking about local governments not getting money, and you may be talking about state employees not getting paid. If there’s no emergency appropriations, there’s no authorization to spend money.
