On Wednesday, New York state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins confirmed that the Legislature will be pursuing a budget extender as talks will likely go past the April 1 deadline.

With the extra time for negotiations, Patrick Orecki, director of state studies at the Citizens Budget Commission, is urging lawmakers to rethink their spending plans.

“There’s about $8 billion to $9 billion in state operating fund spending added on top of what the governor had already put forward, so the Legislature is planning to spend a lot more money and do it permanently,” he said.

The other issue CBC is focused on is projected outyear budget gaps.

“Not only on paper do we have projected budget gaps going into the next few years, but we’re building a structural gap too,” Orecki explained. “There’s a big misalignment between the recurring revenue that the state has, and our recurring spending. So that’s a big red flag.”

You can find more about the CBC’s New York State 2024-25 budget outlook here.