The clock officially started on the 2025 legislative session in Albany on Wednesday, marking the beginning of a months-long dance between Gov. Kathy Hochul and state legislators negotiating New York’s multibillion-dollar budget.

On the table: discussions about raising taxes and getting mentally ill and potentially dangerous people off the streets and subways.

“It really has that first day of school atmosphere,” said Democratic State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, after she was reelected to her job.

For hundreds of elected officials, lobbyists and advocates, Albany will be the center of their universe from now until June.

Although Democrats do enjoy majority control of both legislative chambers — it’s not a recipe for unity with Gov. Hochul and her ideas.

“I always say the [devil] is in the details,” Democratic Bronx State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said in the state Capitol.

Hochul pledged she’ll back measures to make the Empire State more affordable, having argued during a Midtown press conference Monday that raising taxes is a last resort.

“I wouldn’t put a budget forth that we could not afford and making sure we don’t have to raise taxes on New Yorkers,” she said.

Heastie thinks the poorest New Yorkers should be off the hook for state income tax payments, but he wants to hike taxes to pay for a raft of other items.

“You got to get revenue from somewhere. Unfortunately, New York, we’re the biggest giver to the federal government, and we get the least amount of return. So the state has to raise revenue,” said Heastie.

Republicans say a tax hike following congestion pricing will hurt Democrats, who are still smarting from losses in the November elections.

“When they talk about these policies, they directly and negatively impact and drive up costs of working people, average, everyday New Yorkers,” Robert Ortt, the Republican State Senate Minority Leader, said in an interview with NY1.

It’s an issue that will likely force Hochul and lawmakers to go head-to-head on how to fund the MTA’s multi-billion dollar capital plan for spending projects through 2029.

“There’s a lot of internal problems that they have that they need to fix first. So I’m not a fan at this point of giving more money to the MTA, and I do not think that we had to do congestion pricing,” Queens Democratic Assemblyman David Weprin said.

Besides subway upgrades, Hochul and the Legislature will battle over how to keep mentally ill people, those in danger of hurting themselves and others, off the streets and trains.

“We haven’t made a safe choice in allowing these individuals to deteriorate on our streets and on our subway. It’s a moral issue, and it’s a public safety issue,” Manhattan Democratic Assemblyman Micah Lasher said.

Heastie cautioned that any change to New York’s involuntary commitment standards needs to be done carefully.

“I think the biggest issue people have is, you know, people’s civil rights. It’s like, how far do you go on pushing people’s civil rights?” he said.

Standing on the precipice of her 2026 reelection campaign, Hochul must balance spending and policy action ahead of Donald Trump’s reentry to the White House.

State leaders are discussing how that could affect New York.

“We will just be nimble, we know how to govern, we know how to establish policy in the state so we will do what’s necessary to protect the people of New York against any affront that comes their way from the federal government,” said Michael Gianaris, the Democratic State Senate Deputy Majority Leader from Queens.

Hochul is slated to give her 2025 State of the State address on Jan. 14.