ALBANY, N.Y. \u2014 The New York State Legislature is expected to pass another extension to the state budget on Tuesday as lawmakers continue to debate some issues.<\/p>\n
The budget was due on April 1, but lawmakers passed a one-week extension to keep state workers paid. Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s proposed budget for the 2027 fiscal year totals more than $260 billion. That\u2019s an $8 billion increase from last year\u2019s budget, which was more than five weeks late. <\/p>\n
So, what\u2019s the holdup with the budget? News10NBC spoke with lawmakers<\/a> in Albany, who said the state\u2019s climate law and car insurance rates are some of the contested issues. <\/p>\n Debate over Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act<\/p>\n The debate has been heating up in Albany over whether the state should stay the course on its clean energy goals. The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA)\u00a0requires that the state generate 70% of its electricity from renewable sources and reduce its emissions by 40% by the year 2030.<\/p>\n However,\u00a0at an event in Rochester<\/a>, Hochul said she wanted to delay the timeline due to the cost to energy customers. She said financial challenges like the pandemic, inflation, and tariffs have made the goals set in 2019 unrealistic. Some climate activists have called on Hochul to stay the course<\/a>, saying they will save customers in the long run.<\/p>\n The electric school bus mandate, requiring districts to stop buying new diesel buses in 2027 and stop using all diesel buses by 2035, has also been a hot-button topic in Albany. In March, the legislature rejected an amendment<\/a> that would repeal the electric bus mandate. Every Democrat in the state senate voted to stay the course.\u00a0<\/p>\n Only a handful of school districts in the Rochester area have started transitioning to electric buses. Gates-Chili has the most<\/a> in the area with 15 electric buses. Gates-Chili leaders say the buses work well because their routes are short and densely populated. However, leaders in the Naples school district, a more rural area where homes are spread out, said electric buses are more expensive to run<\/a> \u2014 anywhere from five to eight times as much as diesel.<\/p>\n News10NBC has also done several stories about concerns that there\u2019s currently not enough electricity available<\/a> on the grid to power electric school buses. <\/p>\n Debate over car insurance rates<\/p>\n Another big debate is on Hochul\u2019s proposal to lower the state\u2019s car insurance rates<\/a>, currently among the highest in the nation. Hochul aims to lower the rates by focusing on insurance fraud prevention.<\/p>\n New York saw more than 38,000 suspected insurance fraud cases in 2023. That includes \u201cstaged crashes\u201d, intentional crashes to collect insurance payouts. In New York, even the driver deemed mostly at fault for a crash could walk away with a large insurance payout. In her State of the State address, she spoke about her plan<\/a> to use the DMV, State Police, and the Department of Financial Services to address insurance fraud, hoping it will help to lower rates.<\/p>\n Assemblymember Josh Jensen, who represents parts of Monroe County\u2019s west side, said lawmakers are debating<\/a> the best strategy to tackle car insurance rates. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCertainly myself and families across New York, including right here in Monroe County, see their auto insurance rates going up,\u201d Jensen said. \u201cAnd the question that we\u2019re discussing as part of the budget process is how do we bring those auto insurance rates down?\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFor Related Stories:\u00a0clcpa<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0car insurance rates<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0New York State budget<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALBANY, N.Y. \u2014 The New York State Legislature is expected to pass another extension to the state budget…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75522,19588,9,11,10,49,43742,51,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-188402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-car-insurance-rates","9":"tag-clcpa","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-news","13":"tag-new-york-state","14":"tag-new-york-state-budget","15":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","16":"tag-new-york-state-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188402","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=188402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}