State Legislature passes $132.5B budget

ALBANY -- Amid noisy protests, the state Legislature slogged all day and night to give final passage to a $132.5 billion budget – just the third on-time budget in New York in 28 years.

Lawmakers were bent on finishing the job before midnight Thursday night - the technical deadline for the beginning of the state's fiscal year. The Assembly put the finishing touches on the $132.5 billion document shortly after 1 a.m. Thursday.

Clearly, many lawmakers wanted the achievement -- following years of criticism that the State Legislature was "dysfunctional."

"This budget charts a new course," said Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre). "This budget has made Albany functional and accountable to the people."

Overall spending will be cut $3.5 billion from the current year.

Some legislators complained they were pressured to limit debate so other lawmakers could claim the document was finished early.

"I don't mind giving the governor a win," said state Sen. Kevin Parker (D-Brooklyn). "But the least you could have done was let us speak on the bills."

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has touted the budget -- marking the first year-to-year spending cut in 15 years -- as changing the state's trajectory. 

It included steep cuts in education ($1.3 billion or about 6 percent), Medicaid ($1 billion or about 2 percent) and state operations (10 percent).

It also called for eliminating 3,700 state prison beds and numerous discrete cuts, such as making graduate students ineligible for the state's Tuition Assistance Program.

As lawmakers debated, rank-and-file Democrats zeroed in on something not in the budget: renewal of an income-tax surcharge on high earners, a surcharge some call the "millionaires' tax." Enacted two years ago, it was authorized only through Dec. 31. Democrats said it was unfair to cut social service and health programs but not renew the tax.

"They call this a tough budget. But the only group that can't say this is a tough budget is the millionaires," said state Sen. Eric Adams (D-Brooklyn). "To me, that's astonishing."

Republicans countered they had to keep their promise about the tax expiring and that such taxes drive out businesses.

"New York State has a spending problem and we can't continue that," said state Sen. Charles Fuschillo (R-Merrick), "or else we'll continue the exodus that we've seen over the last decade."

Outside the Senate chambers, security officials and State Police shut the lobby as hundreds of protesters arrived by the busload.

Advocates for education spending, rent control, social services for the needy and state universities filled the hallways carrying signs reading "You're Tightening Your Belt Around Our Necks," and singing and chanting, "Hey, you millionaires, pay your fair share," and "No more cuts, Cuomo!"

"We want them to extend the millionaires' tax and put that money back in our schools and communities," said Florence Capers, a member of the Long Island Progressive Coalition. She said protesters want lawmakers to "see the faces of the people being affected."

At one point, the demonstrators crowded the glass double-door leading to the Senate lobby, triggering a handful of state troopers to line up and order them back.

Neither the Senate nor the Assembly would allow the demonstrators access to the chambers.

Near dusk, the hungry demonstrators tried to have 70 pizzas delivered. State troopers at first blocked the local delivery man -- prompting chants of "No pizza, no peace!" But after some friendly Democrat senators intervened, the troopers allowed the pizzas through a freight delivery door -- after the pies had been X-rayed.