getting paid due to a late budget<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cNew York State employs over 130,000 individuals whose compensation depends on timely budget enactment,\u201d a memo accompanying the bill said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen budget negotiations extend past the April 1 deadline, affected employees may be unable to meet utility payment obligations during the interruption period.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Larinda](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/larinda-c-hooks-spent-life-126646051.jpg\")
Assemblymember Larinda Hooks is pushing legislation that acknowledges put-upon legislators who aren\u2019t getting paid after the state\u2019s budget deadline, as she said, \u201caffected employees may be unable to meet utility payment obligations.\u201d New York State Assembly<\/p>\n
But currently only elected officials in state government are being put upon because the legislature keeps passing temporary extenders that cut paychecks for the wider workforce.<\/p>\n
Hook\u2019s woe-is-me request was swiftly panned as a \u201csilly conversation\u201d and \u201casinine,\u201d by other legislators, who are the highest paid in the country at a cool $142,000 per year on top of extra money for travel to the state capital.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t need to pass laws to benefit ourselves because we do our, one of our most basic parts of our job, which is passing a budget,\u201d Assembly Minority Leader Ed Ra (R-Nassau) told reporters Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of a silly conversation to talk about having utility relief that\u2019s only going to be for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI never try to explain asinine,\u201d state Sen. Andrew Lanza (R-Staten Island) told The Post in the chamber\u2019s lobby.<\/p>\n
The \u201cAutomatic Utility Deferment Act,\u201d which has only Hook as a sponsor, would require utility providers to automatically suspend termination of service and waive late payments for state employees subject to a payroll freeze because of a late budget, according to the bill.<\/p>\n
The proposed law is not expected to pass.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, lawmakers approved the eighth stopgap measure to keep state workers paid on Wednesday while Democrats, who control all facets of state government, haggle over a full deal behind closed doors.<\/p>\n
Many legislators passed the extender and then sprinted for the exits to head home for an early weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re way past timely and we\u2019re getting close to just inexcusably late,\u201d Lanza said.<\/p>\n
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) said Wednesday he thinks budget negotiations have nearly reached a conclusion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think an end is in sight,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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While details to numerous policy issues are still being hammered out, broad agreements on car insurance reform, climate laws and immigration are taking shape, Heastie said.<\/p>\n
Political consultants said with both Gov. Kathy Hochul and every lawmaker up for re-election, everyone has their own interest at play.<\/p>\n
Hochul wants to run on a message that will garner votes across the state while some senators and assembly members need to worry about primaries from the left.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are thorny issues that have to be dealt with. There are different factions in the Democratic Party \u2014 left, center and right,\u201d said George Arzt, who is a former spokesperson for ex-Mayor Ed Koch.<\/p>\n
He noted Hochul can wait out the legislature longer because she has a general election to worry about in November \u2014 and not a June primary.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are Democrats who have June primaries who are going to want to go back to their districts and campaign for re-election,\u201d Arzt said.<\/p>\n
Former communications director to ex-Mayor Michael Bloomberg Bill Cunningham said with no GOP influence in budget talks, the dynamic in Albany has changed.<\/p>\n
With Democratic infighting, protracted disagreement become more institutional.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the governor versus both houses of the legislature,\u201d Cunningham said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALBANY- Poor us! A Democratic state lawmaker in the highest paid chamber in the nation pitched a bill…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[14655,75,84,83,57,9,24,17566,63,4281,58],"class_list":["post-214971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-lawmakers","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-state-assembly","tag-nyc","tag-state-budget","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214971","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=214971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}