Message from State Senator Liz Krueger . . .
During the first week of August, the Senate passed the final piece of the budget, the revenue bill. In the end, the final bill changed little from the one we were considering in June. It provides the necessary revenue to balance the budget with revenue raisers including eliminating the sales tax exemption for clothing under $110, charging hotel tax on internet bookings, allowing for the amortization of pension costs over longer periods, and eliminating a number of business tax exemptions.
A major reason this bill did not pass with the rest of the budget back in June, is that a few members were holding out for a bill that included a plan to grant greater independence to SUNY and CUNY, including the ability to set their own tuition rates. With such a slim majority, and the Republicans holding firm on their vows not to provide votes for the revenue bill, these few hold-outs were able to delay the final passage of this year's budget. However, when it became clear that there were not 32 votes for either of those measures, and they also had significant opposition in the Assembly, the SUNY/CUNY changes were not included in the final deal--it was voted on in a separate bill, but withdrawn when it became clear it did not have enough support to pass.
I had long expected that the budget was not going to get better through delay, which is why I was prepared to vote for the revenue bill as it was written months ago. But in the end we reached a point where we simply had to get it done, which meant that a lot of compromises were made. In many cases, I believe there were better revenue options than the ones included in the final budget. For instance, I continue to believe that raising revenue by allowing wine sales in supermarkets, and by taxing sugary beverages, was preferable to eliminating the sales tax exemption on clothing under $110.
In addition to the basic revenue bill, both houses passed a contingency plan to deal with the possibility that Federal Medicaid funding known as FMAP funding might not come through. The contingency plan would impose significant additional cuts to both healthcare and education if needed to balance the budget, in the event the federal FMAP funding was not granted to New York State. Fortunately, FMAP funding, as well as funding to reduce teacher layoffs, finally seems to be moving at the Federal level, decreasing the likelihood that we'll need to implement the contingency plan at the State level.
I was pleased that the revenue bill included a change to our redistricting process so that prisoners will be counted in the communities they come from, rather than the prisons in which they are serving in, for purposes of determining legislative district boundaries. This is a long-needed reform, which will ensure that communities most impacted by the criminal justice system do not lose representation when people from those communities are incarcerated. Of course, this is only a piece of the broader redistricting reform we need to establish an independent redistricting process, focused around equal representation rather than incumbency protection.
This budget process has been painful, but I do believe it has prompted some important conversations about how we can create a better process for the future. Many of the budget reform bills that I introduced earlier this year and in years past have been getting much more attention both from my colleagues and from the public as a result of the problems in reaching an agreement, and I hope that in the near future we will be able to advance this or other legislation that will create a more transparent and effective process for the future.