Hochul says NY budget talks advancing despite another extender likely early next week

ALBANY — Gov. Hochul and legislative leaders are “making good progress” on New York’s weeks-late budget despite another stopgap measure likely being needed early next week to ensure state workers are paid.

The governor said Friday she had a productive meeting with Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Westchester) and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) as the three remain at odds over Hochul’s proposed changes to the state’s bail laws and her ambitious housing plan.

“We’re making good progress… I’m looking forward to wrapping this up in the not too distant future,” the governor said following an unrelated press conference at the State Capitol.

“We are working very hard to resolve all key sticking points,” she added.

The slow-moving negotiations, conducted behind closed doors and largely centering on bail, have already prompted lawmakers in the Democrat-controlled Legislature to pass a pair of extenders to fund government operations and ensure state workers are paid.

Another stopgap measure is likely to be needed early next week as talks drag on. Saturday marks two weeks since the April 1 start of the state’s new fiscal year.

Hochul included several major policy proposals in her initial $227 billion executive budget blueprint, the most politically charged being the bail law changes that would remove the “least restrictive means” standard to ensure a defendant returns to court.

The governor says she’s seeking to clarify the law for judges when they’re weighing bail for serious offenses.

The proposal, in addition to potential changes to evidence sharing laws, has drawn fierce criticism from criminal justice groups and progressive Democrats who say it would gut the 2019 pretrial reforms meant to ensure people aren’t jailed simply because they are poor.

“From bail to discovery, as a legislature we have clearly communicated our willingness to transform the criminal legal system to be more fair, efficient, and effective,” Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages (D-Nassau), chair of the New York State Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic, and Asian Legislative Caucus, said in a statement on Friday.

“Unfortunately, the Executive seems more interested in another path that relies on the same regressive and biased policymaking that has resulted in broken communities,” Solages added.

Among the contentious issues being debated as part of the state’s spending is Hochul’s plan to address the Empire State’s housing shortage, which focuses on transit-oriented development and sets housing production targets for all towns and cities in the state, has also drawn pushback from pols on both sides of the aisle.

Also on the table are a host of different taxes and ways to raise funds for the cash-strapped Metropolitan Transit Authority, Hochul’s controversial call to lift the charter school cap and environmental initiatives meant to help New York achieve its ambitious climate goals.