The New York state Legislature on Thursday passed a 12th state budget extender — now more than six weeks past the budget’s deadline — which was promptly signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul.
The extender runs through Monday, May 18, and funds state operations.
The budget was due April 1 and is now the latest in 16 years and the fifth straight late budget under Hochul’s tenure.
Hochul last week announced a “general agreement” on a $268 billion budget, including changes to the state’s climate law, auto insurance reform, changes to the state’s environmental quality review law and an immigrant protection package in response to the Trump administration’s immigration policy. A final agreement on details is still being finalized by legislative leaders.
Votes on the spending package are not expected until at least next week, though multiple members of the state Assembly leaving conference Wednesday afternoon expressed clear doubt that next week is a sure thing.
The lateness comes as voters in school districts go to the polls on Tuesday to decide the fate of their own budget proposals, which had to be crafted while a final state budget deal remains unresolved. A majority of a school district’s revenue comes from the state budget, as well as local aid through property taxes.
The delay is also impacting a rapidly closing window of time for post-budget business. The Legislature is scheduled to leave Albany for the year on June 4.
Hochul, running for a second full term this fall, has defended the state budget process and has long defended her use of the budget in pursuit of policies she feels are important to New Yorkers that would be challenging to achieve through normal legislation, given the complexities of the Legislature, and she claimed Monday that New Yorkers would likely back her up in that.
The process has also been routinely blasted by Republicans in the minority.
“As Albany continues to miss budget deadlines, the governor chose to prioritize a $4 billion bailout for New York City while New Yorkers across the state are still waiting for a finalized budget. Before committing billions elsewhere, the focus should be delivering a responsible state budget that addresses the challenges families and communities are facing every day,” state Assembly Minority Leader Ed Ra said in a statement Thursday. “New Yorkers have seen this pattern before: larger budgets and more spending year after year while families struggle with rising costs and declining quality of life. Bigger budget numbers have never automatically meant better results for the people paying the bills. We will soon be tasked with reviewing thousands of pages of budget language before making decisions that will impact millions of New Yorkers. The people of this state deserve more than chaos and delays; they deserve a government that plans responsibly and delivers.”