NYS Capital — A day after Governor Kathy Hochul made several stops on the Thruway pushing for an on-time FY2027 Budget with her priorities included, the New York State legislature provided a different perspective.

“If I had a crystal ball, I can assure everyone here we will not have budget bills completed before the April 1 deadline,” New York State Senator Liz Krueger (D), Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said on the Senate floor on Thursday. “Certainly, discussions that we see in the media all the time are concerns about changes to CLCPA, environmental law, fraud issues and insurance company issues, tier six issues. Tax issues, locality issues, if you walk through the halls, you’ll see quite a quite a few of our friends from local government who are up here urging us to take certain actions and not actions, health care, financing issues. It’s a lot of issues. I have to say, it’s a big deal. It’s a big deal budget.”

Republicans in the minority expressed their discontent at another late budget during the Kathy Hochul era, of which has featured Democratic supermajorities and majorities in the State Assembly and Senate.

“You got time left to go,” Republican Senator Jim Tedisco said. “You control all levers of power. You control the Senate, one vote shy of a supermajority, supermajority in the Assembly, the Governor is your affiliation. You couldn’t do a balanced on time, good budget for your constituents in the timely fashion. You had a whole year. Don’t be pointing towards this side of the aisle because you’re late with the most important job you’re expected to do constitutionally.”

Krueger responded:

“I would wish we had an on time budget. I’ve lived through endless years under both Democrats and Republicans, but we didn’t have on time budgets….I believe that New Yorkers want better budgets that matter to people, not what date is on the bill. So yes, I would prefer that with a Governor and two Houses all of the same party, we might be able to get things done faster, but I’ll still stand by getting better results is much more important than getting on time. Frankly, when we don’t get the budget done on time, we don’t get paid. Everybody else does.”

The legislature passed the debt service bill on Thursday, so State workers are expected to be paid beyond the deadline. A budget extender is expected next week.