NY Budget Talks Continue As Deadline Approaches

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York’s legislative leaders negotiated over property tax relief, charter schools and pre-kindergarten funding Monday with a budget deadline looming in a week.

Leaders emerging from closed-door talks at the Capitol said they continued to make progress to get a deal by April 1. But they remained vague about what they were discussing and departed from the usual practice of all parties negotiating face-to-face together. Cuomo met Monday with the Senate’s two leaders before meeting separately with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Senate Republican co-leader Dean Skelos had appeared irritated at Silver when he left negotiations abruptly Friday.

“Sometimes you accomplish more doing it separately,” Silver said. “Last Friday, the senator was agitated about what was discussed. It’s just easier to do that.”

There have been talks over how much money to devote to pre-K, a signature issue for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. There also has been legislative resistance to Cuomo’s property tax relief plan, which would require localities to consolidate or share services for local homeowners to benefit. Cuomo kept up public lobbying for his proposal Monday by announcing more than 225 local officials supported his plan.

Senate co-leader Jeffrey Klein said they were “slowly but surely” moving toward agreements on property tax relief, renter relief and pre-K.

The fate of some other policy provisions, including the education tax credit that would benefit private and religious schools, remained unclear.

Klein said they had not discussed the Dream Act, which would open state education aid to students in the country illegally. But Silver, who has made the measure a top legislative priority, said he had a “long discussion” with the governor about it.

This article appeared in print on page 1 of the March 25th, 2014 edition of Hamodia.