New York\u2019s new state budget is sending millions of dollars to Albany and giving some New Yorkers rebate checks to help with rising utility bills.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers finally passed the budget late Wednesday night, and NewsChannel 13\u2019s Ally Hoy followed up Thursday morning at the State Capitol.<\/p>\n
The budget includes a record $44.4 million in unrestricted aid for Albany. City leaders say that money could help the city avoid deep cuts while officials continue working on a long-term financial plan.<\/p>\n
That includes $20 million in capital city funding and another $20 million to help close Albany\u2019s budget gap. Common Council leaders say the funding should help keep essential city services in place through next year.<\/p>\n
The budget also sets aside $1 billion for what lawmakers are calling \u201cPOWER CHECKS\u201d to help people deal with high energy bills.<\/p>\n
About 8.2 million New Yorkers are expected to qualify for the one-time payments. Couples making less than $150,000 a year will get $200, while eligible single filers will receive $100.<\/p>\n
The rebates will be based on 2024 tax returns, and the checks are expected to go out sometime between September and December.<\/p>\n
But while Democrats are highlighting the rebates and new spending, Republicans say the budget still misses the bigger issue of affordability.<\/p>\n
Senate Republican Leader Rob Ortt criticized the plan, saying it spends too much and still doesn\u2019t do enough to lower costs for families and small businesses.<\/p>\n
Republicans also argue the budget keeps expensive green energy mandates in place, which they say are continuing to drive up electric and heating bills across the state.<\/p>\n
Democrats are defending the budget by pointing to the rebate checks, along with investments in education, health care, and other programs they say will help working families.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFor Related Stories:\u00a0State Budget<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0downtown albany<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0breaking news<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York\u2019s new state budget is sending millions of dollars to Albany and giving some New Yorkers rebate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4022,57868,9,11,10,49,51,50,4281],"class_list":["post-246378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-breaking-news","tag-downtown-albany","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-state-budget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246378","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=246378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}