Each house has come out with their one-house budget
resolutions – a procedural step in budget negotiations in which each house lays
out their budget priorities. The Assembly
kept campaign finance reform in its one-house, while the Senate was noncommittal
on campaign finance reform in its. Pre-kindergarten
funding remains a major issue between both houses and the governor. Neither house approved the governor’s tax
freeze.
This past week, the general joint budget conference committee
(otherwise known as the mother ship) met Monday with the usual political
theater. Joint conference subcommittees
on various budget topics were held very quickly thereafter. The various committees didn’t meet again
until Thursday when each committee set “table targets,” meaning they set the
dollar amount they think each part of the budget should get – for example,
transportation has a table target of 9 million and the Thruway Authority got a
table target of 26 million (both house asked for funding than what the
executive budget proposal laid out because of the harsh winter weather and the
need for infrastructure repair. However,
campaign finance reform was not mentioned in the public protection conference committee
(the part of the budget where campaign finance reform appears), which set a
table target of 19 million, dealing primarily with prison closure, indigent
legal services, and domestic violence funding.
Education’s table target was set at 240 million, with the pre-k funding decision
being bounced back to the mother ship (which means it is a major sticking point
for the legislative leadership and will be decided behind closed doors with the
governor and Senate and Assembly leaders).
Meanwhile, our legislative lobbying on the budget goes
on. We’ve seen several senate and
assembly members on our legislative priority issue, campaign finance reform and
have participated press conference on the issue with our good government
partners. In addition, an troubling issue
the League has recently become aware of that has been a free standing bill
(sponsored by Assemblymember Cusick in the Assembly and by Senator Godlen in
the Senate) has now become part of the Senate’s budget resolution. The Senate’s budget provision would provide
tax credits to individuals, corporations, and partnerships that donate money to
public schools, to privately operated charter schools and, through “education scholarships,”
to students who attend schools that provide religious education. Not only do many opponents see the bill has a
thinly veiled voucher system, but it would remove millions of dollars from the
state general fund in the form of tax credits at a time when the state has continuously
failed to fund public schools at levels ordered by the Court of Appeals in
litigation initiated by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity more than a decade ago. Additionally, the proposal favors taxpayers
who desire to support private and public schools of their choice, through a
first-come, first-serve process with no restriction on geographic distribution
or the target institution’s need. It
uses, at a minimum, $300 million of state revenue, which the League believes
should instead be allocated through a democratic legislative process. Although
it encourages additional resource allocation to students in PreK-12 education,
it thwarts the Legislature’s collective decision-making as exercised through
the budget negotiation process and transfers the power to target public tax
dollars for education to individuals, corporations, and partnerships. We are working vigorously to protect public
education by defeating this initiative.
It is anticipated that budget negations will end sometime
this coming week and that the budget will pass following a few late nights. Given that it’s an election year, we can be
assured that the budget will very likely be on time.
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