By Dan Clark
Albany Times Union

ALBANY — Gov. Kathy Hochul and Democrats in the state Legislature have reached a weeks-late agreement on New York’s budget, which includes billions in new spending, criminal justice and mental health law changes and a “bell-to-bell” ban on cellphones in schools.

The budget also includes an income tax cut for low- and middle-income filers, an expanded child tax credit and stimulus-style checks of up to $400 for New Yorkers and their families.

“Despite the chaos and uncertainty emanating out of Washington, we still made it work,” Hochul said during a Monday evening news conference. “We never lost sight of the people we were sent here to serve.”

The budget is nearly a month late after negotiations stalled over disagreements on Hochul’s policy priorities, including debates of the changes to the state’s retooled laws governing pretrial discovery and the ban on cellphones in schools.

It’s an agreement that could have a short shelf life. Hochul and lawmakers have acknowledged that if Congress approves cuts to programs for which New York receives funding, they’ll likely reconvene to assess if they can soften the blow. 

But Hochul warned again Monday that the state won’t be able to backfill deep cuts from the federal government, which has already reduced hundreds of millions of dollars in spending for New York.

“This just may be the tip of the iceberg and the scale of these cuts is simply too massive for one state to absorb,” Hochul said. “The reality is, we can only devise a budget with the information we have at the time.”

The state receives about $93 billion from the federal government each year. More than half of that is Medicaid, in which nearly a third of the state’s population is enrolled.

The budget by the numbers

The budget will have a price tag of $254 billion, Hochul said. That’s $2 billion more than she proposed in January but billions less than the Legislature wanted to spend.

That will help fund a handful of initiatives proposed by Hochul to improve New York’s cost of living. That includes what Hochul said will be the lowest income tax rates for 8.3 million low- and middle- income filers in 70 years.

Some of those tax filers will also be eligible for stimulus-style checks included in the agreement. Those will be $400 for families and $200 for individuals who qualify. The income threshold wasn’t immediately available.

The state’s child tax credit will also be tripled to $1,000 for children under the age of 4 and increase to $500 for school-aged children, Hochul said.

“While I can’t single-handedly stop inflation, I can help New Yorkers afford the basics,” Hochul said.

At the same time, the budget will seek to raise new revenue to fund a $68 billion plan to improve, repair and maintain the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which provides mass transit in New York City and for commuters in its suburbs.

The plan will change what’s called the payroll mobility tax, which is charged to businesses in New York City and counties in the surrounding area served by the transit system.

Larger employers will see that tax go up but it will decrease for smaller companies, Hochul said. Another $1.2 billion will be redirected from the redevelopment of Penn Station, a project being taken over by the Trump administration.

The budget will also allocate an additional $50 million in extra funding for localities statewide, Hochul said.

“It’ll help local governments pay for essential workers, like police and firefighters,” the governor said.

The Legislature also agreed to Hochul’s $400 million in funding for improvements in the city of Albany. That will include $200 million for targeted economic development projects.

Changes to pretrial

criminal discovery

Hochul convinced the Legislature to amend statutes governing pretrial discovery that were overhauled in 2019. Discovery involves the exchange of evidence between prosecutors and defendants in advance of a trial.

But prosecutors in New York City have experienced an uptick in case dismissals since the laws were retooled, and they have blamed overly broad discovery rules and stricter deadlines for turning over evidence as the cause.

“Too often, crime victims watch in horror as their assailants walk free — not because they’re innocent, but because of procedural technicalities,” Hochul said.

Defendants have been able to successfully convince judges to have their cases dismissed by showing prosecutors withheld a piece of evidence, whether that was intentional or not and regardless of the material’s relevance to the charges.

The budget deal includes changes to that law that will allow judges to reject a dismissal motion if prosecutors show they exercised due diligence in searching for that discovery material, weren’t acting prejudicial toward the defendant, and can demonstrate that it’s not related to the charges.

Criminal justice advocates had been opposed to Hochul’s changes, calling it a shift that favors prosecutors who would sometimes provide discovery materials on an inconsistent timeline under the previous statutes.

“Regardless of these amendments, we will continue to vigorously litigate our clients’ cases to hold prosecutors accountable when they fail to meet their discovery obligations,” the Legal Aid Society, a legal defense group, said Monday night.

Hospitalizing people with 

mental illness

A series of violent incidents in New York City convinced Hochul this year to propose a new standard for when someone with a mental illness can be involuntarily hospitalized.

That standard currently allows someone to be committed to a hospital, with or without their consent, when they’re perceived to be a risk to themselves or others. That determination is made by a physician.

The new law will expand that to allow the involuntary commitment of someone when, because of their mental illness, they’re unable to meet their basic needs, including access to food and shelter. A physician will still make that determination.

But the Legislature was able to secure critical add-ons to that proposal, including a requirement that patients receive a comprehensive plan for continued treatment after their discharge and deeper investments in peer support services.

Harassment while wearing

a mask

A late-sought proposal by Hochul would have created a new criminal charge for someone who conceals their face to hide their identity while harassing someone of a protected class.

That proposal didn’t make it into the final budget as Hochul proposed it. The new charge allows for a harsher sentence that’s only applicable when someone is accused of concealing their identity while committing a misdemeanor or felony crime, or fleeing the scene of a crime.

Some lawmakers had been concerned that Hochul’s proposal would be used to target masked protesters whose political views don’t align with those of certain political leaders. Civil rights groups had also panned the proposal.

Odds and ends

Hochul also highlighted several pots of spending approved by lawmakers for various areas, including a $1 billion commitment over the next five years to help alleviate energy bills and advance the state’s energy transition.

An additional $400 million will be set aside for child care vouchers statewide while $110 million will go toward the construction and renovation of child care facilities.

The remaining details of the budget agreement between Hochul and lawmakers will be included in the nine omnibus bills that make up the spending plan. A tenth bill to pay off some of the state’s debt passed weeks ago.

It’s still unclear where Hochul and lawmakers landed on a new formula that would change how the state distributes funding to schools. That could have major implications for districts in future years.

Hochul had also sought several changes to the state’s prison system, including a stronger oversight entity, codified body camera requirements and the potential closure of up to five prisons in the fiscal year.