{"id":181478,"date":"2026-03-31T22:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T22:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/181478\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T22:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T22:52:08","slug":"ny-democrats-to-blow-state-budget-deadline-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/181478\/","title":{"rendered":"NY Democrats to blow state budget deadline – again"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALBANY \u2013 State lawmakers will blow past Wednesday\u2019s deadline to pass Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s $263 billion budget plan, as negotiations drag on over her push to delay green energy mandates<\/a> and her bid to lower car insurance premiums.<\/p>\n

Democrats in the state Assembly and Senate passed a one-week stopgap measure Tuesday keeping the government funded through next week amid the largely-stalled discussions between Hochul and legislative leaders.<\/p>\n

Gov. Kathy Hochul and state legislative leaders once again failed to meet the April 1 state budget deadline. Mike Groll\/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul<\/p>\n

Stewart-Cousins indicated to reporters that the main issues holding up the talks were the non-fiscal policy-related items that Hochul pitched in her massive spending package proposal. Hans Pennink<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still at the beginning of the middle, as it turns out,\u201d Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Westchester) said, using a stale Albany adage to indicate the discussions have not moved much since they began in earnest about two weeks ago. <\/p>\n

Stewart-Cousins indicated to reporters that the main issues holding up the talks were the non-fiscal policy-related items that Hochul pitched in her massive spending package proposal.<\/p>\n

Sources familiar with the talks said the major sticking points were Hochul\u2019s bid to delay the potentially crushing financial impacts of New York\u2019s climate mandates and her proposal to change liability standards for insurance payouts after serious car accidents.<\/p>\n

All of Hochul\u2019s budgets so far have been late, marking five consecutive years of the state blowing past the April 1 deadline. Last year\u2019s budget was only passed on May 8.<\/p>\n

Republicans, who are mostly kept out of budget negotiations, derided the process as, once again, \u201ccrazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere doesn\u2019t seem to be any desire, any urgency, to meet this deadline, which is crazy to me given that we\u2019re in year eight of one-party control here in Albany,\u201d Assembly Minority Leader Ed Ra (R-Nassau) told reporters.<\/p>\n

Stewart-Cousins said discussions on monetary issues \u2013 including the Dems\u2019 push to raise taxes \u2013 have yet to seriously come up in the three-way talks.<\/p>\n

State lawmakers passed legislation to keep state funding at current levels through next week as the state budget will be late. Getty Images<\/p>\n

But the Legislature appears to be corralling support behind a statewide corporate tax increase<\/a>, even as Hochul continues slamming the door on all new levies.<\/p>\n

High-level talks will continue this week and over the weekend with lawmakers having a scheduled break in legislative work days until April 20. <\/p>\n

The stopgap spending measure only lasts through next Tuesday, meaning pols will likely have to schlep back to Albany to vote on another barring a miraculous dam burst in negotiations.<\/p>\n

Discussions over cementing New York\u2019s sanctuary status into state law and other anti-ICE measures could also come up and gum up future talks, as well as sweetening pension benefits for state employees and adjusting New York City\u2019s class size reduction mandate.<\/p>\n

Hochul\u2019s office didn\u2019t respond to request for comment, but she has basked in her perennially late budget deals as a deliberate strategy to bully the Legislature, which does not receive pay amid the tardy budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot one person has ever come up and say, \u2018Oh my God, governor, the budget\u2019s late.\u2019 They say \u2018thanks for fighting for us,\u2019 Hochul told reporters in mid-April last year flanked by a poster that read \u201cgood things happen in May.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALBANY \u2013 State lawmakers will blow past Wednesday\u2019s deadline to pass Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s $263 billion budget plan,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4241,10691,57,9,11,10,49,17566,51,50,18571,4281,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-181478","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-albany","9":"tag-carl-heastie","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-new-york-state","15":"tag-new-york-state-assembly","16":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","17":"tag-new-york-state-news","18":"tag-new-york-state-senate","19":"tag-state-budget","20":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}