Budget bills passed, but the drama goes on

By SHERRY HALBROOK
With high budget melodrama playing out at the Capitol right up to the governor’s imposed deadline of midnight June 28, state legislators in both houses rejected Gov. David Paterson’s remaining budget bills and passed their own spending bills, instead.

The governor stayed up late to greet those bills with a line-item veto stamp expected to knock out some 6,900 appropriations that went beyond his own Executive Budget presented in January.

The legislators, in turn, started to talk about possible veto overrides, something very difficult to achieve in the Senate where the Democrats hold a whisper-thin majority and most Republicans have been block-voting against the budget measures.

Most of this tit-for-tatting is about school aid and other issues that do not directly affect state operations. However, part of the battle now is over $1 billion in federal Medicaid funding Paterson says New York can’t count on receiving. The legislators say assuming New York won’t get it is likely a self-fulfilling prophecy, and they prefer to see the glass half-full.

While the Legislature finished passing spending bills June 28, the wrangling continued over revenues.

Among the bits that are supposedly settled is boosting the cigarette excise tax to $1.60 (raising it to $4.35 from $2.75), the tobacco products tax from 45 percent of the retail price to 75 percent, and the tax on snuff to $2 an ounce from $.96 per ounce which is projected to generate $440 million annually.

Much of the budget already had been enacted piecemeal as Paterson added sections of his budget proposals to his weekly emergency budget extender bills that the legislators could not amend and reluctantly passed to avoid the wholesale closing of state operations.

Those bills assume $250 million would be saved through proposed state-employee-salary givebacks, but don’t say how that would be achieved. Paterson has stated, unless the unions agree to wage concessions, these savings will come from the elimination of at least 10,000 positions through a combination of attrition, early retirement, and layoffs.

Paterson said he also may impose another $250 million in cuts to agency budgets.

If nothing else, passage of the remaining budget appropriations bills eliminated the threat of a state government shutdown that Paterson had held over legislators, state employees and the public for weeks.

A few bills were passed with three-way agreement among the governor, Senate and Assembly, and they account for modifications to Paterson’s Executive Budget proposal and are not subject to veto.

The bills that passed included shifting the cost ($30M) of Medicare Part B reimbursements to participants in the NYS Health Insurance Plan. (See related article, page 13.)

Agency consolidations
Paterson’s proposal to merge the Office of Real Property Services and the State Board of Real Property Services into the Department of Taxation and Finance was approved.

His proposal to merge the state Department of Economic Development and Empire State Development Corporation into the Job Development Corp was rejected.

Another measure will merge parts of multiple agencies into a new Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services which was supposed to have a total of 397 employees under Paterson’s Executive Budget. The new agency will consolidate the state Office of Homeland Security, the state Emergency Management Office, the Office of Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure Coordination, the state 911 Board, the interoperable communications program of the Office for Technology (OFT), and the Office of Fire Prevention and Control at the Department of State. The bill was modified to include “transfer-of-function” language ensuring all employees will receive their rights under Section 70.2 of the Civil Service Law.

Another bill that passed modifies Paterson’s proposal to combine the Crime Victims Board (CVB), the Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence (OPDV), and the Division of Probation and Correctional Alternatives (DPCA) into the Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS). The OPDV and CVB are left on their own and are funded separately. However, the Crime Victims Board will now be called the Office of Victim Services.

A move to transfer funding for administration of the Rape Crisis Programs and the medical examiners program from the Department of Health (DOH) to DCJS was nixed.

Paterson’s proposal to establish an Office of Indigent Legal Services within DCJS was changed to create a new state entity within the Executive Department to oversee the delivery of indigent defense services in the state. The new office is funded at $1.5 million for state operations.

Agency budgets
Significant changes to state agency budgets or programs identified, so far, include:
• Correctional Services – Lyon Mountain and Butler minimum-security facilities will close in January 2011. The agency has said the Ogdensburg medium-security and Moriah shock-camp facilities will remain open.

• Children and Family Services – Will close by January 2011 the Annsville non-secure facility and consolidate it with the Taberg non-secure facility. The Tryon limited-secure program for boys will be closed and the Lansing non-secure center will be reduced.

• Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities – Funding is up $87.05 million from last year.

However, PEF has been told approximately 100 Medicaid Service Coordination jobs may be contracted to not-for-profit providers over a six-year period, and state staff caseloads will increase. Also 20 jobs at the Institute for Basic Research are cut.

For more budget details check the PEF website.