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After Negotiation Impasse, State Passes ‘Extender’ Budget


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Cuomo and Flanagan (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


After the official deadline was missed and budget talks reached a weekend impasse, both houses of the New York State Legislature passed a set of bills Monday to extend the current budget, with tweaks, until May 31 in order to avoid a government shutdown.

When it became apparent that they would not have a deal in place by the April 1 deadline, Governor Andrew Cuomo, who prides himself on on-time budgets, said he was allowing a weekend "grace period" to negotiate a consensus and pass a $150 billion spending plan. But several contentious issues led to a stalemate and a crisis point. Lawmakers could not agree to the contours of criminal justice reform, K-12 education funding, and affordable housing policy, leaving the rest of the budget on hold.

Late Sunday night, the governor announced his intention to send the Legislature a budget "extender" and said in a statement that the majority leaders in the Senate and Assembly would pass it, which is what happened Monday at the Capitol.

With an interruption in state operations or payroll at risk, lawmakers decided to pass what Cuomo outlined, though many held their noses while doing so, and some voted against the temporary spending plan. Legislative leaders, meanwhile, indicated they were continuing to negotiate the larger budget plan for the new fiscal year. The Legislature is in session this week in Albany before a two-week break.

Even with the temporary extender, there will be consequences for legislators, according to a spokesperson for Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. For lawmakers to get paid, the law requires that they take all actions necessary for the ongoing operations of state government and local assistance for the entire 2017-18 fiscal year. In other words, state law prevents legislators from being paid without a full spending plan in place.

Though members of the Senate’s Independent Democratic Conference -- an eight member breakaway group of Democrats that forms a ruling coalition with majority Republicans -- and mainline Democrats had vowed not to pass a budget without raising the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18 years old, the extender bills passed the chamber by a 46-15 vote.

“I’m not shutting the government down,” Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan said from the Senate floor during debate ahead of the vote. Senators indicated it was essential to keep the government running and to ensure that state employees would be paid on schedule.

Senators who voted against the extender noted that it failed to address affordable housing programs, including a new 421-a program, critical education and health funding, and criminal justice reforms, particularly “raise the age.”

“Children do not belong in prison; children should be treated like children. Thus, I cannot vote for this budget extender,” said Senator Jesse Hamilton, an IDC member from Brooklyn, in a statement.

On the Senate floor, Flanagan pushed back on the suggestion that the minority conferences were not represented in the extender budget.

“I don’t subscribe to the notion that minority members have been left out, because I read the tweets, I read the blogs, I read the media accounts, I see what people say. I know where people’s priorities are,” said Flanagan.

The measure did not pass as smoothly on the Assembly floor.

Exhausted Assembly members on both sides of the aisle lashed out at the governor for his lack of communication with rank-and-file lawmakers, especially those in the minority Republican conference, the absence of criminal justice reform or a satisfactory 421-a plan, and for citing federal uncertainty as one of the reasons for the gridlock.

Assemblymember Diane Richardson, a Brooklyn Democrat, said “we will not be duped” by the governor’s tricks, while Assemblymember Steven McLaughlin, a Republican representing the Capital Region, accused Cuomo of “hiding like a coward” and encouraged his peers to push back on the “thug nonsense.”

While the governor has described the budget bills as a bare bones extender that would just continue last year’s financial plan so that the government could continue to function, controversial details were worked into the more than 1,700 pages.

The temporary budget includes billions of dollars in funds for the governor’s regional economic development programs, New York City infrastructure projects, and next phase of the Buffalo Billion. It also includes elements of the Assembly and Senate one-house budget resolutions, like the addition of bottled human breast milk as covered by Medicaid, which Assembly Democrats proposed, and $2.5 billion for upstate drinking water infrastructure, something Senate Republicans have wanted, notes Empire Center, a fiscally conservative think tank.

Two months is too long a period to keep New York residents in the dark about what policies and economic measures will make it into the budget, good government advocates said.

"New Yorkers deserve to know why their elected representatives have given themselves an extension on their homework. We need open leaders meetings where people can understand the negotiation process that's holding up their $150 billion budget,” said Common Cause NY executive director Susan Lerner, in a statement. “We need a public process."

The budget extenders, like full budgets before them, were passed with “messages of necessity” from the governor, which waive the otherwise-required three-day aging period for bills before they can be voted on.

Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan budget watchdog, said in a statement that “this emergency legislation is preferable to a government shutdown, but creates uncertainties for school districts and local governments. Achieving a fiscally sound budget is more important than an "on time" budget, but the pressing outstanding issues could and should have been resolved as part of a more effective and accountable budget process.” CBC also called for a sound, full budget plan to be agreed on “promptly.”

In an evening statement, Gov. Cuomo's office hailed the passage of the budget extender, "which funds all government operations through May 31 and advances key priority infrastructure, economic development, and environmental projects across New York." Cuomo's office highlighted the investment in clean water, cost controls on prescription drugs, and that the budget "increases direct care professional salaries 6.5 percent over the next two years."

"Over the next two months, the state expects to spend $24.6 billion, which includes the general fund, aid to localities and school districts, special revenue, capital projects, and debts service," the statement from Cuomo's office says. "The Extender also authorizes $16.4 billion in new capital appropriations to advance critical economic development and infrastructure projects."

Meanwhile, Mayor Bill de Blasio indicated Monday that he’s frustrated with how things played out in Albany. “The impact on the city of not having a state budget is more uncertainty,” de Blasio said on NY1’s Road to City Hall Monday evening. De Blasio also pledged on two different occasions Monday to continue to push for his “mansion tax,” which would provide the city with additional revenue to fund affordable housing for seniors but has been called a non-starter by both Senate Republicans and Gov. Cuomo.

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by Ben Max and Rachel Silberstein

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by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

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by Rachel Silberstein, State government reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

The Week Ahead in New York Politics, April 3


New York City Hall

New York City Hall


What to watch for this week in New York politics:

All eyes are on Albany, where a new state budget is late and negotiations continue. The state’s new fiscal year began Saturday, April 1, but there is still no spending plan from the Governor and Legislature. At about midnight Sunday night, with negotiations at an impasse, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced he would move an "extender" budget on Monday and that legislative leaders had said they would pass it. The extender will largely continue state spending as it was for the most recent fiscal year, with a few adjustments, which are not clear as of Monday morning. It will also extend through the third week in May, when there will be more clarity on the federal budget and its effects on New York. However, a new state budget deal could come together before then and be passed to supercede the extender.

Issues that appear to have held up a larger deal on a new state budget include details of overall education aid to municipalities, funding for charter schools, raising the age of adult criminal responsibility, and detailing the allocation of about $2 billion affordable housing funds that were set aside in last year’s budget but never released by Cuomo and legislative leaders. There is also federal funding uncertainty hanging over everything.

Meanwhile, Mayor Bill de Blasio and 8.5 million other New York City residents await budget news from Albany.

De Blasio had a busy weekend, fresh off his Friday announcement that the city would begin formulating a plan to close the Rikers Island jail complex over ten years: on Saturday, he eulogized Timothy Caughman and participated in The Inner Circle Show. On Sunday, de Blasio will delivered remarks at the Christian Cultural Center and the New Life Tabernacle in Brooklyn. He voted in City Council Member Brad Lander’s participatory budgeting for Council District 39 and he and First Lady Chirlane McCray made remarks at the 25th Anniversary of the Progressive Democrats Political Association of Central Brooklyn.

De Blasio has several public events scheduled Monday, including his weekly appearance on NY1’s Road to City Hall in the 7 and 10 p.m. hours -- see details of his schedule below.

Also this week, city budget season moves from City Council preliminary budget hearings to behind-closed-doors discussions leading to the Council’s formal preliminary budget response. That will then inform de Blasio’s executive budget, which will lead to another round of Council hearings and more negotiation. The Council continues with non-budget committee hearings this week.

Those and a whole lot more this week -- see our day-by-day rundown below.

***Do you have events or topics for us to include in an upcoming Week Ahead in New York Politics?
e-mail Gotham Gazette editor Ben Max: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.***

The run of the week in detail:

Monday
The New York State Legislature is scheduled to be in session on Monday in Albany. 

At 9 a.m. Monday, the New York State Board of Regents will be in session. The board will also be in session at 5 p.m. Monday and at 11:10 a.m. Tuesday.

US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor will headline Albany Law School’s speaker series, speaking on Monday and Tuesday.

On Monday, Mayor de Blasio has several public events: at 11:15 a.m. he will visit and provide brief remarks to high school juniors preparing for the first-ever citywide SAT School Day on Wednesday, at Queens Vocational. At 12:40 p.m. de Blasio "will attend opening ceremonies for the New York Mets home opener at Citi Field. The Mayor will join members of the NYPD and FDNY for the ceremonial first pitch." At 2:30 p.m., "the Mayor and the Police Commissioner will host a press conference to discuss crime statistics." And in the evening, de Blasio will appear on NY1’s Road to City Hall.

At the City Council on Monday:
---The Committee on Parks and Recreation will meet at 10 a.m. to discuss a proposed law “in relation to the posting of information online regarding tree maintenance work.”
---The Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries, and International Intergroup Relations will meet at 1 p.m. to discuss a resolution “calling upon President Donald Trump to fully fund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and not to eliminate or diminish any of these agencies in any form.”

Just before that 1 p.m. hearing, at noon at City Hall, Cultural Affairs committee chair City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer and Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito “will hold a Rally to Save the Arts to protest the Trump Administration’s proposed elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.” They’ll be joined by other City Council members; Tom Finkelpearl, Department of Cultural Affairs Commissioner; Comptroller Scott Stringer; leaders of the city’s three library systems; leaders and members of “50+ cultural organizations” as well as “Broadway performers, dancers, several hundred artists and cultural workers.” 

At 10:30 a.m. Monday, City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez "will hold a press availability following a planning meeting with over 60 organizations gearing up to take part in the 2nd annual #CarFreeNYC, taking place on April 22nd," at Borough of Manhattan Community College.

At 6 p.m. Monday, the Fordham Center for Nonprofit Leaders will host Valerie Barton-Richardson of CAMBA and a representative from the city Department of Homeless Services for a policy discussion on issues surrounding homelessness in the city.

At 6 p.m. Monday, Council Speaker Mark-Viverito will attend Passover food distribution at Young Israel of Staten Island.

At 9 p.m. Monday, Comptroller Scott Stringer will appear on BronxTalk with Gary Axelbank, BronxNet TV channel 67 and Fios 33, online at bronxnet.org.

Tuesday
The New York State Legislature will be in session on Tuesday in Albany. 

At 9 a.m. Tuesday, Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon and Senator Martin Golden will host the second annual NY Dyslexia Awareness Day at the State Capitol. Amy Margolis, of Columbia and the Brooklyn Learning Center, and Carolyn Strom of NYU will give “expert presentations,” and Senator David Carlucci will join a panel of students with dyslexia to talk about their experiences.

On Tuesday Mayor de Blasio will make several media appearances -- on PIX11 and NY1 TV and Hot 97 and WABC-AM radio -- and then he'll fly west. He'll be in Washington and California for several fundraisers and government meetings over the next few days, according to Politico New York.

Public Advocate Letitia James will co-host and speak at "the 11th Annual NYC Equal Pay Day Rally," at City Hall at noon. James will appears on NY1's Road to City Hall in the 7 and 10 p.m. hours Tuesday evening. At 7:15 p.m. Tuesday, James will deliver remarks at the "Loaded Guns in Public Places? How Concealed Carry Reciprocity May Impact Us" forum. And, at 8:30 p.m., James will deliver remarks at A Taste of Fifth in Brooklyn.

Comptroller Scott Stringer will also speak at the Equal Pay rally at City Hall Tuesday.

At the City Council on Tuesday:
---The Committee on Civil Rights will meet at 10 a.m. to discuss a proposed law “in relation to prohibiting employers from inquiring about or relying on a prospective employee’s salary history.”
---The Committee on Consumer Affairs will meet at 10 a.m. to discuss a proposed law “in relation to preventing the unauthorized practice of immigration law.”

At 6 p.m. Tuesday, the Association for a Better New York will host two talks. The first, “The City Budget & How it Works,” will feature Deputy Comptroller of the Budget Preston Niblack, who will “present the fundamentals behind New York City’s budget.” The second, “The Water & Sewer Network,” will feature Cas Holloway of Bloomberg LP, “who will discuss the scope of the city’s water and sewer network.” 

Wednesday
The New York State Legislature will be in session on Wednesday in Albany -- the last day of session for two weeks. 

At the City Council on Wednesday:
---The Finance Committee will meet at 10 a.m. to discuss several proposed laws and resolutions.
---The full City Council is scheduled to meet at 1:30 p.m. As usual, this will be prefaced by a press conference led by Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.

The City Planning Commission will hold a public meeting on Wednesday.

At 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, Bob Gangi will announce his mayoral run in the Democratic primary with a press conference at 1 Police Plaza.

At 6 p.m. Wednesday, City Council Member Robert Cornegy Jr., Commissioner Jacques Jiha, Sheriff Joseph Fucito, CB3 and the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation will host a town hall, "Addressing Deed Fraud and Abuse" in Brooklyn.

At 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, the Gotham Center at CUNY Graduate Center will host “Fixing Elections: The Politics of Electoral Reform in NYC, Then and Now,” discussing the causes of low turnout in City elections and how electoral reform can increase turnout. Brigid Bergin of WNYC will moderate a panel featuring Gerald Benjamin, formerly of the Center for New York State and Local Government Studies; Daniel O. Prosterman, author of Defining Democracy; Susan Lerner of Common Cause New York; and Rob Richie of Fairvote. The forum is co-sponsored by The Brennan Center for Justice (NYU)​, The Center for Urban Research (The Graduate Center, CUNY), The League of Women Voters of the City of New York, The New York Public Interest Research Group, New Yorkers for a Human-Scale City, The Green Party of New York, and the New Kings Democrats. 

At 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Riders’ Alliance will host its second L Train Shutdown Solutions Meeting for those in Brooklyn affected by the L train’s shutdown, at the Brooklyn Public Library Stone Avenue Branch in Brownsville.

Thursday
At the City Council on Thursday:
---The Committee on Public Safety will meet at 10 a.m. for an oversight hearing regarding “enforcement issues with revenge porn,” as well as to discuss two proposed laws: one criminalizing revenge porn, and the other “requiring the maintenance of an information sharing system regarding civil actions, claims, complaints, and investigations alleging improper police conduct.”
---The Committee on Parks and Recreation will meet at 10 a.m. to discuss a resolution calling for a Hudson River Greenway between Spuyten Duyvil, Bronx and Yonkers, as well as a proposed law regarding the renaming of two thoroughfares and public places in the Bronx.
---The Committees on Mental Health and Youth Services will meet jointly at 1 p.m. for an oversight hearing regarding youth suicide.

At 8:15 a.m. Thursday, the Center for New York City Law will host “Building Mega-Projects: Lessons from the Second Avenue Subway,” with Michael Horodniceanu, President of MTA Capital Construction Company.

At 9 a.m. Thursday, JustLeadershipUSA will hold “Leading with Conviction in the Era of Trump.” This event “will bring together policy makers, ​journalists, ​formerly incarcerated leaders, and other supporters and allies to explore the crucial role of “leaders with conviction” in driving efforts to reduce mass incarceration and revitalize affected communities.”

At 9 a.m. Thursday, the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce will host a workshop with several leaders from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, “who will share important lessons on how to reduce risks from employee fraud, unauthorized diversion of funds, and cyber breaches.”

At 6:30 p.m. Thursday, former US Attorney Preet Bharara will deliver the John Jay Iselin Memorial Lecture at the Cooper Union.

At 6:30 p.m. Thursday, City Comptroller Scott Stringer will hold a town hall meeting at Goddard Riverside Community Center on the Upper West Side.

At 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer will keynote City & State’s “Borough Series: Manhattan,” honoring 25 prominent Manhattan individuals.

Friday and the weekend
On Friday, Mayor de Blasio will likely make his weekly appearance on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show.

At noon Friday, the Manhattan Institute will host “Inside Job: How Government Insiders Subvert The Public Interest,” featuring Mark Zupan, author of a book bearing the same title. Discussion will center around “the tremendous damage that government insiders -- elected officials, bureaucrats, and other public employees -- inflict when they enrich themselves at taxpayers’ expense.”

At 9 a.m. Saturday, Urban Democracy Lab will host “Humanizing Data: Data, Humanities, and the City.” The event will feature panels and workshops relating to how data can be used to “enhance and disrupt the kinds of research questions, methods, and narratives that define the humanities.”

At noon Saturday, Council Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer will host the eighth annual Spring Open House, honoring female community leaders in his Queens district.

At noon Sunday, the Eleanor Roosevelt Democratic Club will hold its annual Spring Brunch. City Comptroller Scott Stringer will present outgoing City Council Members Dan Garodnick and Rosie Mendez with awards “for their service to New Yorkers.” Further, the Charles Buchwald Memorial Award for Community Service will be presented to Planned Parenthood Votes NYC.

***
Have events or topics for us to include in an upcoming Week Ahead in New York Politics? E-mail Gotham Gazette executive editor Ben Max any time: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (please use "For Week Ahead" as email subject).

***
by Ben Brachfeld and Ben Max
@GothamGazette

The 'Three Men in a Room' and Millions Outside


Cuomo Heastie Flanagan 2015

Heastie, Cuomo, Flanagan in 2015 (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


It’s the last week of March, which means the final stretch of New York State budget negotiations, and all are watching the “three men in a room,” an adage that has come to symbolize Albany’s opaque government processes and concentration of power.

Each March, for as long as anyone can remember, the governor, the speaker of the Assembly and the majority leader of the Senate hold frequent, clandestine meetings to hammer out important policy decisions and decide the fate of billions of dollars in state funding. A state budget is due by the April 1 start of the new state fiscal year. For many years, the Assembly has been controlled by Democrats, largely from New York City, while the Senate has been dominated by Republicans, mostly from upstate and Long Island, though the margin in the Senate has been quite slim for several years and Democrats held control briefly.

In 2015, Governor Andrew Cuomo, a second-term Democrat, changed the paradigm slightly to allow a fourth man in the room: Senator Jeff Klein, the leader of the eight-member breakaway group known as the Independent Democratic Conference, which has a ruling coalition with the Senate GOP. The move was decried as unfair by both minority leaders, those of the Senate’s mainline Democrats and the Assembly Republicans.

Whether three or four, the depiction of an exclusive club of legislative leaders and the governor alone in “the room,” mapping out the state’s interests behind closed doors, is not entirely accurate. Often in the room are senior staffers -- including budget directors and chiefs of staff -- who are intensely involved in negotiation and planning, while outside voices -- interest groups, lobbyists, rank-and-file legislators, think tanks, and others -- also wield some, usually small degree of influence over the participants and their decisions. It is typically true that the legislative leaders in “the room” are there with some instruction from their conferences about top priorities, items they are willing to trade for others, non-starters, and degrees to which they are will to accept partial victories.

Legislative leaders will often run from the negotiating room back to their conferences to discuss some details and get a sense of whether their minions are willing to go along with the latest deals on the table.

But for the vast majority of the 150 members of the Assembly and 63 members of the Senate, who serve on largely powerless committees, subcommittees, legislative commissions, and task forces, the doors to the room are closed, and the opportunity to influence final details of what is in and what is out of the state’s most important annual document is minimal.

Also out of the loop is the public. During the final week of budget negotiations at the Capitol, the statehouse press corps can be spotted diligently waiting outside of closed-door meetings, hoping to garner nuggets of information about the status of major issues like “Raise the Age,” an upstate expansion of ride-hailing apps, water infrastructure funding, education aid, and other contours of the $150 billion spending plan. When legislative leaders -- Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, IDC Leader Klein -- do emerge from the governor’s office or various conference rooms, their comments are usually sparse and cryptic.

“I would say progress has been made on a lot of these issues,” Heastie told reporters on Tuesday. “But when all these things are interconnected for an issue that’s largely important to either us, the Senate, or the governor, that’s not been dealt with, there’s no deal.”

Following the convictions of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos in 2015, Cuomo and the new legislative leaders have even become more evasive of the press, holding negotiation sessions and leadership meetings at the Governor's Mansion.

On Monday, Cuomo noted that, unlike his predecessors, he has made point to involve Senate and Assembly committee members on high stakes policy issues like “Raise the Age,” which would increase the age that a person may be charged like an adult in criminal court, and has emerged as a major sticking point in this year’s negotiations.

"What I do -- which is a little different than past governors -- is on a truly complex issue like Raise the Age, like marriage equality, like gun safety, I actually bring in the senators and assemblymen who are the heads of those committees and work through the language myself,” Cuomo said Monday during an interview on NY1.

While this may be true for some high-profile issues, negotiations are almost exclusively among Cuomo and the legislative leaders when it comes to the rest of the policy and funding that is decided.

The system has shifted in other ways under Cuomo, who came to office in 2011 promising to restore function to state government and has delivered six consecutive on-time budgets, a point of pride for the governor that he regularly boasts about and has been given credit for. However, this usually means that the budget is passed late on March 31, sometimes spilling into April 1, with deals coming together in the final hours and almost no time for public review. Rank-and-file lawmakers usually only have a few hours to review complex budget documents before voting them through.

The deadline and Cuomo’s fixation on meeting it, along with the nature of negotiations among governing factions, have led the governor to issue a “message of necessity,” a motion to waive the aging period for bills required by the state constitution.

While the law calls for a three-day waiting period between printing of a bill and the day it is voted on, so that the public may review it, Cuomo, like previous governors, typically issues a "message of necessity" to bypass the requirement and speed the process along. It is a practice that has been criticized by good government groups and some legislators, who say timeliness should not be prioritized over transparency. Rather, these exceptions should be used sparingly, and for real emergencies like natural disasters.

“The ‘message of necessity’ in the passing of the state budget has become as predictable as snow is in January,” said Dick Dadey, executive director of government reform organization Citizens Union. “And it’s unfortunate, because that power should only be used in extreme circumstances. It has deprived the public the time to review and scrutinize the state budget before it has passed.”

Heastie and Flanagan, both relatively new to their leadership positions, appear more willing to involve rank-and-file lawmakers in budget talks than their predecessors. For example, Heastie sends frequent updates to his conference members on his interactions with Cuomo and Flanagan, sometimes hourly, according to Assemblymember Nily Rozic of Queens.

Calling the situation a “vast improvement” from the way the budget worked when she was first elected to the seat in 2012 and Silver was speaker, Rozic said that as a rank-and-file member of the Assembly now, “You certainly have opportunities to make your opinion known and to pick a few issues that you care about and to advocate for them in the budget process.”

On the Senate side, a spokesperson for Flanagan said the majority leader frequently seeks the input of his conference and brings issues back to its members for debate. "We are a member driven conference," said Scott Reif, in a statement to Gotham Gazette. "The legislative leaders and the Governor don't decide a budget on their own. Our entire Senate Republican Conference is working together every minute of every day to put together the best possible budget we can for hardworking. middle-class taxpayers and their families."

While legislators may feel more involved in final negotiations than in the past, messages to the public as the state budget deadline nears are often inconsistent or muddled by contradictory reports. On Monday, Flanagan, Heastie, and Klein expressed confidence that the budget would be delivered on-time, while Cuomo floated the idea of an “extender budget,” which would temporarily continue last year’s budget in order to account for uncertainties on the federal level.

On Tuesday afternoon, Assembly Democrats were told in a closed-door meeting that there would be no temporary budget extender, though Heastie, in an earlier interview said he was open to the budget being adopted in phases, The Buffalo News reported.

Members of the minority conferences, for their part, say they are privy to fewer details of budget talks and that they often learn the details of the budget bills when it is time to vote on them. According to Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb, an upstate Republican, letters addressed to Cuomo and Heastie go unanswered so he must “get creative” in order to represent the interests of his conference on the budget.

“The avenues we employ is social media, interviews like I’m doing with you, certainly we put out any number of press statements and policy statements,” said Kolb, whose conference is about half the size of the majority. “I think it should be that way, but we are dealing with facts and reality, so we have to be creative at figuring out ways to articulate our views.”

For Senate Minority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Westchester Democrat whose chamber is controlled by Republicans by a razor thin margin and whose conference has long championed issues like Raise the Age, the stakes are higher. Stewart-Cousins has raised concerns that education aid and Raise The Age are being "watered-down," while ethics reforms and the DREAM Act are “being forgotten.”

“We obviously send written communication to our colleagues, I am in constant contact with Speak Heastie, I talk with the governor. People understand that we are invested in making sure that the right policy is in the budget,” said Stewart-Cousins in an interview with Gotham Gazette.

The leaders of both minority conferences say they believe they should be in the negotiating room, helping to formulate the budget and major policy deals. Spokespeople for Heastie and Cuomo did not return requests for comment on the transparency of the budget negotiation process.

"We should be in the room and it's because of the public, not because of Brian Kolb,” said the Assembly minority leader. “It's because of the millions of people that our conference represents and the millions of people that Andrea Stewart-Cousins represents," Kolb said, adding that none of the leaders in the room are from Upstate.

Last year, a campaign to let Stewart-Cousins participate in budget negotiations -- which would earn her the distinction of being the first woman “in the room” -- went nowhere. “Changing these types of institutions is very, very difficult,” she said Tuesday, about three-and-a-half days before the budget was due.

Note: The article has been updated to include comment from a Senate GOP spokesperson.

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by Rachel Silberstein, State government reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

Note: Gotham Gazette is an independent publication of Citizens Union Foundation, sister organization of Citizens Union.


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