New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced late Thursday a “conceptual agreement” on a $229 billion state budget after nearly a month of stalemate.
(Bloomberg) — New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced late Thursday a “conceptual agreement” on a $229 billion state budget after nearly a month of stalemate.
Under the new plan the governor reached with the legislative leaders, the minimum wage will be raised to $16 an hour in New York City in 2024, the payroll taxes on the city’s businesses will be increased to pay for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s budget deficits and the state’s controversial bail reform laws will be revised.
The details of the plan are still being fine-tuned, and the budget won’t be finalized until lawmakers return to Albany to vote on it, sometime within the next several days.
Budget negotiations remained stalled for nearly a month over several controversial proposals, making this year’s spending plan the latest in more than a decade. This year’s budget process tested Hochul’s ability to push her own priorities while working with an increasingly progressive arm of the legislature and a veto-proof Democratic supermajority in both houses. She was dealt a very public blow in January after a key Senate committee rejected her nominee to head the state’s highest court.
“I know this budget process has taken a little extra time,” Hochul, 64, said Thursday. “But our commitment to the future of New York was driving this, and I believe today we’ll be able to unveil the concepts of a framework that’ll reveal that what was important is not a race to a deadline, but a race to the right results.”
Hochul and lawmakers wrangled over a number of issues, including one of her main priorities: the bail law. In a win for the governor, judges will have more autonomy to set bail and ensure a defendant returns to court. The governor faced a closer-than-expected reelection bid last year after her Republican challenger made crime his key focus.
Another sticking point included the governor’s housing plan, which would have created 800,000 new homes over the next decade. The plan called for rezoning and housing increases in the suburbs. That plan is no longer included in the budget, but Hochul has said she may resurrect it sometime during the remaining days of the legislative session, which will likely end in June.
Here are the main takeaways from the budget:
- MTA: Lawmakers spiked Hochul’s plan to increase a payroll tax on businesses in the New York City suburbs served by the MTA to help fix the transit agency’s operating deficits. Instead, they agreed to raise payroll taxes only on the city’s businesses, and to pilot a free bus service program inside New York City to help buoy the ailing transit system.
- Taxes: New York residents will be able to claim children under four years old and allow non-citizen tax filers to claim the state earned income tax credit. They also agreed to extend the supplemental earned income tax credit to one year to help struggling families wrestling with the burden of inflation. And they planned to increase the excise tax on cigarettes by one dollar to $5.35 from $4.35.
- Minimum wage: The state will increase the minimum wage in New York City, Long Island and Westchester to $16 an hour by 2024, and will raise the wage to $15 an hour elsewhere in the state. The minimum wage will increase 50 cents a year in 2025 and 2026, and will be indexed to inflation afterward, Hochul said.
- Bail reform: The conceptual agreement changes the current bail law’s requirement that judges use the “least restrictive” means when considering whether to set bail for people who are accused of violent felonies and misdemeanors, clarifying that judges can set bail in cases even when the crime in question is one for which releasing the accused is an option.
–With assistance from Fola Akinnibi.
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