Submitted photo Assemblyman Andrew Goodell, R-Jamestown, discusses the Assembly’s one-house budget during the Assembly’s session Monday.

New York’s state representatives have serious issues with the one-house budgets approved by the state Assembly and Senate on Monday.

The Assembly approved a $226.4 billion budget that is $7.9 billion (3.6%) higher than the budget proposed by Gov. Kathy Hochul in January. Assemblymen Andrew Goodell, R-Jamestown, and Joe Giglio, R-Gowanda, were among the 42 Assembly members to vote against the proposal. The Senate is also proposing additional spending compared to Hochul’s budget proposal. Now that both houses of the legislature have approved their one-house budgets, Assembly and Senate leadership will agree on a final budget with Hochul before the chambers meet to approve a final budget.

Goodell took issue with the Assembly budget’s $13.4 billion increase in spending compared to the state’s 2021-22 budget while only appropriating $162 million back to middle class taxpayers by accelerating the state’s middle class tax cut.

“As I mentioned I was really pleased to see we have a middle class tax cut that’s been accelerated and, as my colleague noted, that will result in a savings for our middle class of $162 million.

Put that in perspective. That’s seven-thousandths of 1% of our state budget. Wow. I’m going to write home about that one. … So we’re increasing the budget by $13.4 billion and we’re giving the middle class a tax cut of $162 million,” Goodell said on the Assembly floor. “Those numbers should be reversed. We should be increasing the budget by $162 million and giving a tax cut of $13.4 billion. That would really help the New York state economy and our middle class for sure. A budget, of course, is a statement of priorities. It’s a statement about what’s important to us. And so for our entire agricultural industry we provide a tax credit, as noted by my colleague, of $16 million. We provide a tax credit of $20 million for video games. So apparently producing video games is about 20%, 30% more important than our entire agriculture industry.”

At the same time, Goodell took issue with the lack of a gas tax holiday in the budget compared to a state budget subsidy to balance the New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority budget. The Senate one-house budget does include a gas tax holiday.

“We have a $3.8 billion subsidy for the MTA, which by the way has not raised a single fare rate since 2015 when they raised it by 25 cents,” Goodell said. “That’s cool. Meanwhile all my residents are paying $1.30, $1.40, $1.50 a gallon more. Why is it we’re asking all our residents to subsidize the MTA by $3.8 billion without asking the riders of the MTA to pay just a little bit more for their own transportation while those upstate are just being hammered? I’m glad we didn’t cut CHIPS funding this year. But guess what’s happening to the cost of asphalt and oil — that’s right, it’s going up the same percentage as your gasoline and diesel expenses. Let’s ask our New York City friends and colleagues to pay a little bit more on their MTA ride and let’s help offset all of the upstaters who are facing these huge cost increases.”

The Assembly budget also includes funding for pretrial services that offer mental health treatment and other alternatives to incarceration, as well as funding for programs across the state to fight gun violence. It includes $15 million in funding to help justice system involved New Yorkers access pretrial services, including job placement programs, drug treatment and counseling services. The budget also provides $50 million for municipal and nonprofit organizations to increase capacity and an expansion of ATI, mental health and substance use disorder treatment programs. Also included is an additional $19 million in critical investments to fight gun violence. An additional $212.5 million in funding is dedicated to the Office of Indigent Legal Services, to provide increased representation to individuals who are entitled to counsel in court matters and are financially unable to obtain representation. It includes a new $345 million appropriation to include coverage for undocumented immigrants under the Essential Plan.

Goodell questioned how income guidelines for coverage for undocumented immigrants using the Essential Plan on the NY Health exchange will be verified? The program relies on either a Social Security number or taxpayer identification, with Weinstein saying health plan buyers would self-certify their income.

“So we’re going to be on the honor system, then, as it relates to how much they pay,” Goodell replied. “An honor system for people who are not legally paying income taxes because they don’t have Social Security number. It’s just ironic that we rely on an honor system for those we know are violating the laws.”

Assembly members also included in the budget legislation a proposal to require schools to switch to electric school buses by 2035. Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein, D-New York City, answered Goodell’s questions about cost by saying the increases in spending on new buses would eventually be borne by the state because new buses are covered under reimbursable state transportation aid to schools. When Goodell asked about exclusions to the policy based on where areas receive their electricity, Weinstein said there were no exclusions, but said it’s possible that over time more sources of electricity — particularly coal plants in Pennsylvania that provide much of Western New York’s power — will become more environmentally friendly.

“This is a major issue in my county because our number one employer is the Cummins Engine company and they’ve made tremendous strides to have dramatic reductions in emissions,” Goodell said. “They’re also moving toward dual-fuel diesels, so here we have an irony that we have legislation that dramatically increases the cost of school buses and makes it illegal for them to use low-emission diesel engines that are produced locally and instead requires them to use coal power that’s generated upwind in Pennsylvania. That’s just one of those quirky things.”

The Assembly’s proposed spending plan includes more than $3 billion in childcare investments, including $2 billion to maintain current subsidies and expand the eligibility from 200% of the federal poverty level to 400% of the federal poverty level over a three year period. To increase the childcare market rate from the 69th percentile to the 90th percentile, the proposal includes an investment of $370 million. The plan also includes $500 million for additional childcare stabilization grants to assist with provider costs such as wages, rent, and other operational needs, and $200 million in capital support to expand childcare access and availability, with a priority on investments in childcare deserts.

Goodell said the investment is needed, but questioned why there isn’t a sliding scale that decreases subsidies gradually when someone reaches 400% of the federal poverty level rather than cutting them off entirely.

“I appreciate that we’re increasing the funding for child care,” Goodell said. “I encouraged my colleagues to phase the funding down. We don’t need a fiscal cliff that traps people in poverty. We already do that. We already know the results after 40 years of fiscal cliffs — we have more people in poverty because they can’t afford to make more money. We don’t need to spend tax dollars to trap people in poverty.”

BORRELLO’S RESPONSE TO BUDGET

Borrello said he supports parts of the Senate’s one-house budget, which increases spending 11% over the 2020-21 budget, singling out the acceleration of the middle class tax cut as proposed in Hochul’s budget proposal, $200 million for the Small Business Pandemic Relief program and a temporary suspension of the state’s gas tax. The budget also repeals the fiber optic right-of-way fee that Borrello has worked to have repealed over the past two years.

Not included in the budget is Borrello’s proposal to use some of the state’s fund balance to pay down its $9 billion in unemployment insurance debt that is driving up unemployment costs for businesses.

“It is disappointing that the majority rejected our requests to use some of the state’s surplus funds to pay down the $9 billion pandemic-driven debt of our state’s Unemployment Insurance Fund (UI),” Borrello said. “This debt was the result of unprecedented circumstances, which is why more than 32 other states have used some of their federal pandemic relief funds to pay down their own UI trust fund debts. Unless New York’s leaders follow suit, this debt will be an anchor around the necks of our small businesses and our state’s recovery. Ending the exodus of residents and jobs from New York State can only be achieved if we make a concerted effort to lower taxes and fees while limiting the growth of government. The Senate’s proposed budget is a textbook example of the out-of-control, election year spending that has made our state the most expensive and tax-heavy in the nation. For these reasons, I could not support it.”

Borrello specifically questioned spending on mental health and the watering down of Kendra’s Law while advocating on behalf of S.8508, introduced earlier this session by Sen. Diane Savino, D-Staten Island, that provides an alternative means for mental health intervention by providing for court ordered in patient medical treatment.

“Tragically we stand here a year later and we have Michelle Go, who died in ex the same manner with a person who should not have been out on the streets,” Borrello said. “And we’ve seen an increase in mental health violence here in New York state in this past year. Very tragically we are standing here again. I’m standing here looking at this one-house budget and we were going to renew in the governor’s Kendra’s Law for another five years and the one house budget only renews it for one year. The Assembly is keeping it for five years.”

Michelle Go was killed in January after she was shoved in front of a subway car by a homeless man. NBC News reported that Simon Martial, 61, had been determined to be unfit to stand trial after a 2019 psychiatric evaluation involving a drug possession charge.

“I think we’re keeping it for one year because we recognize it’s not a perfect law,” said Sen. Liz Krueger, D-New York City and Senate Finance Committee chairwoman. “We need to do more things. So we didn’t want to do a five-year extension and just say we’re done for five years because we, like you, we need to be doing more. What we did learn in researching Kendra’s Law is it is very rarely used in a situation as the example you gave recently from New York City and some of the many other tragic violent cases involving mentally ill homeless people. Kendra’s Law is disproportionally used by family members who go to court to get an AOT and not used a tall when it comes to the issues of homeless people without any connection to their families or any kinds of comm institutions”