While workers in the mental health and human services sector received a 2.6% cost-of-living adjustment in the just-passed budget, it was nowhere near the 7.8% increase that advocates had been pushing.

The increase is equivalent to about $50 million.

There are two kinds of state budget bills: Appropriations bills, or the money that the budget allocates; and Article VII bills, the legislation necessary to implement the appropriations.

Article VII bills include policy and may be changed by lawmakers; appropriations bills distribute the money and may only be changed in limited ways.

It was the latest New York state budget since 2010, and there was some audible griping among lawmakers who didn’t like how long it took, or that the governor used up so much "legislative time" for her own priorities.

While lawmakers gripe about the budget process every year because of the latitude it gives to the executive, this seemed more than just temporary crankiness. But state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie threw cold water on the idea of a constitutional amendment to correct what he views as an unequal process.

The new state budget incorporates several changes into the primary school funding formula in New York state, which means school districts across the state this week are scouring school aid runs to see exactly how those changes will impact their bottom line.

The Foundation Aid formula hasn’t been updated since it went into effect in 2007 during the tenure of Gov. Eliot Spitzer. One change made this year eliminates the reliance on 25-year-old Census data from the year 2000. That data was replaced by a three-year average called the Small Area Income & Poverty Estimate (SAIPE), which is a series of recent Census poverty data sets that includes SNAP program recipients and poverty income measures for instance.

Included in New York's 2025-26 state budget is a plan to close three prisons in a continued effort to reform the state's prison system.

Gov. Kathy Hochul isn't saying which prisons will be closed, but stresses that the effort will not lead to job losses.

Thirty-eight days after the April 1 deadline, the New York Legislature approved a state budget, over a week after Gov. Kathy Hochul declared victory in accomplishing her policy goals and insisting on holding up the process to see them through.

In a slight consolation for those who have grown weary as the budget lapsed into the latest in 15 years, the second day of votes and debates ended hours earlier than anticipated with the Assembly unexpectedly concluding first – just before 9:30 p.m. as applause echoed through the Capitol’s stone hallways. The Senate followed minutes later.

New York is set to lower the minimum hiring age for prison guards from 21 to 18, seeking to boost the ranks of corrections officers during a shortage that was exacerbated by the firing of more than 2,000 guards after a weekslong strike crippled the state’s prison system.

State lawmakers approved the measure on Wednesday and Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, is expected to sign it into law.

Thirty-seven days past the state budget deadline, the legislature passed two budget bills as of Wednesday afternoon — for a total of three out of 10 with more on the way in the coming hours.

Gov. Kathy Hochul made clear early in the process that she had no intention of signing a budget that didn’t include her policy proposals the way she wanted them. “Summers are nice here,” she said in early April.

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced last week that the 2025-26 budget would include $400 million for child care assistance over what she included in her executive budget.

Dede Hill, director of policy at the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy, explained why she considers the investment a “partial victory," and why future investments in the child care workforce are so critical.

New York state budget bills are being passed a full week and a half after Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a deal on the spending plan, which has now grown to around $263 billion.

While the drawn-out process is finally coming to an end, it’s clear from remarks made on the state Senate floor this afternoon by Sen. James Skoufis that some lawmakers are deeply unhappy with how the governor handled the negotiations.

School districts across New York are preparing for critical budget votes on May 20. But without hard data on state funding, districts that are facing rising costs and deficits will have to make difficult decisions.

Leaders are encouraging families to get involved and brace for potential cuts.

A decent amount of rain was falling across New York state on Tuesday, and according to Gov. Kathy Hochul, it was also a rainy day to use some of the state’s reserve funds.

The governor said on Monday that the state budget will now pay off all of the $6.2 billion in unemployment insurance debt that ballooned in New York during the COVID-19 pandemic. The funding for that will come from the state’s reserves, which Hochul at the beginning of her tenure as governor labeled the state’s rainy day fund.

On Friday morning, there seemed to be hope that voting on the state budget could finally commence on Monday. As Friday wore on, that hope dimmed while policy battles continued behind the scenes. By Monday morning, a complete lack of budget bills printed over the weekend meant no votes, but as a consolation, there was a shift in tone toward one of finality.

“We’re 99.9% done,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie told reporters in an afternoon news conference.

In Albany, state legislative leaders have been busy finalizing the $254 billion deal, while Gov. Kathy Hochul was on Long Island touting more of some of the wins she secured.

The budget includes reforms to discovery law, rules to make it easier to involuntarily commit an individual who has severe mental illness and a ban on cellphone during school hours.

Gov. Kathy Hochul says the state budget will now pay off all of the more than $6 billion in unemployment insurance debt that ballooned during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A week ago, the governor said the state would only pay off the interest on that debt.

State Education Department officials late Monday said they were troubled by a potential budget deal to change department regulations for religious and nonpublic schools after weeks of closed-door debate.

In a victory for the Hasidic Jewish community, sources and lawmakers said the budget will roll back the state Education Department's stricter substantial equivalency standards for nonpublic schools the Board of Regents adopted in 2022.

While Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that there was a state budget agreement last week, bills have not been printed now more than a month after the budget was due.

Nathan Gusdorf, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, joined Capital Tonight on Friday to help make sense of the proposals and New York’s budget health.

In the more than one month that the state budget has been overdue, it’s not uncommon to hear "at least it’s not August" around Albany — a reminder of the chronically late budgets of the early 2000s.

August it is not, but Friday the state budget process took a step closer, with 2025 being the latest since 2010 — "the bad old days" as some around the Capitol call them.

Just one day after Gov. Kathy Hochul announced she clinched a budget deal, the Democratic-controlled state Assembly spent hours debating — and then passing — a bill that would legalize what’s called “medical aid in dying,” also known as assisted suicide.

But it’s still unclear whether the state Senate or Hochul supports it.

On the 10th time this year that the New York state Senate met to pass a budget extender, state Sen. Liz Krueger, typically tasked with explaining why the Senate is not ready to vote on budget bills, decided to try something new.

“I asked everyone if they got Monty Python references, and they said yes,” she recounted after session.

According to New York state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the leaders are close to wrapping up budget negotiations, but there are at least two outstanding issues to resolve: Foundation Aid and capital funding.

On Foundation Aid, the Senate’s top Democrat reassured school districts that current negotiations are over how much of an increase in Foundation Aid they will receive. She also stated that no district will receive less state aid than they did this year.

New York lawmakers Wednesday said several housing issues remain open in ongoing budget talks as Gov. Kathy Hochul parades around the state touting a tentative spending agreement that isn't finished.

The governor has announced bits and pieces of the final budget this week, which she said will include $50 million for state-sponsored housing vouchers to help low-income households avoid foreclosure or eviction.

New York’s child care assistance program, the primary way the state provides child care assistance, has been thrown a life preserver in the form of a $400 million infusion that forced Gov. Kathy Hochul to dial back one of her signature budget proposals — inflation rebate checks for many New Yorkers.

Child care advocates are now breathing a sigh of relief, but not for long as they say the funding doesn’t address the scope of the problem, nor is its allocation adequate to stave off a worsening crisis upstate.

If the state budget Gov. Kathy Hochul touted on Monday stands, it will be viewed as a major victory for the moderate Democrat: she pushed for an expansion of Kendra’s Law, changes to discovery and an upcharge for masking while committing a crime, and it appears she got it all.

Moreover, according to the latest Siena College poll, Hochul is not being dinged by voters for a late budget.

Gov. Kathy Hochul said the state budget that's nearing a final deal will not pay down $6.2 billion in outstanding federal unemployment insurance debt from the COVID pandemic — forcing New York employers to continue to shoulder the burden.

Instead, the governor said the spending plan will include $165 million to cover the interest payments business owners across the state have absorbed for the last few years.

On Monday evening, 28 days after the state budget deadline and an undetermined number of days before it is passed, Gov. Kathy Hochul declared victory.

“I’m really proud to say that we got it done,” she said of what she described as an across-the-board sweep of her top budget priorities. “The budget is largely complicated and there are members who want to weigh in on their issues. But on the big-ticket items, the middle class tax cut, child tax credit, the entire affordability agenda, the inflation rebate [check], covered school lunches and breakfasts for families...this all took a lot of effort and what I'm here to say is it's accomplished and I'm really proud of it.”

New York state Sen. Pat Fahy (D-Albany) is thrilled by the $400 million for the revitalization of downtown Albany that Gov. Kathy Hochul has said will remain in the enacted state budget, once the state spending plan is passed.

But another development plan remains on Fahy’s to-do list. Only this one hasn’t received the same attention from the governor.

Gov. Kathy Hochul got just about everything she wanted in this year’s state budget, including measures addressing affordability, public safety and mental illness.

The question is whether any of it can lift her sagging poll numbers.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a “general agreement” has been made between her and legislative leaders on the state budget, totaling $254 billion and including just about everything the governor had on her legislative wish list outlined in January — a bell-to-bell ban on cellphones in schools, inflation “refund” checks, universal school meals and changes to the state’s discovery and involuntary commitment laws.

Hochul said the cellphone policy would take effect in the new academic year in September.

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a $254 billion state budget deal, which includes a school cellphone ban, inflation checks and discovery law changes.

State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris joined NY1 political anchor Errol Louis on “Inside City Hall” to talk about the budget deal.

As a budget deal nears completion, Gov. Kathy Hochul on Friday would not rule out including changes in the final spending plan to weaken education standards for nonpublic schools in exchange for political gain.

State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie has led a push to amend state Education Department guidelines for religious and non-public schools as a political bargaining chip — especially amid the contentious New York City's mayoral election.

After days of anticipation that a state budget deal would be announced by the end of the week, Gov. Kathy Hochul paid a visit to the third floor press hall, one floor up from the executive chamber, to tell reporters that it was not to be.

“I just wanted to let you all know that you can go home tonight, you all look a little tired,” she joked.

Monroe County Republican state Assemblyman Josh Jensen is the vice chair of the Minority Joint Conference Committee and the ranking minority member on the Assembly Committee on Health.

He spoke with Capital Tonight’s Susan Arbetter about the minority’s role in the state budget process, as well as why funding early intervention is so important to him.

With the state budget 24 days late, state lawmakers were back in Albany Wednesday to pass yet another budget extender to fund state government through Tuesday. The hope remains that a handshake deal is within reach Friday with remote conferencing over the weekend — ideally setting the stage for voting on a budget package next week.

State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie met with Gov. Kathy Hochul for just under an hour Thursday afternoon. Stewart-Cousins exited the elevator back to her third floor office to a wall of reporters with one question: Do we have a handshake deal?

Democrats in New York are condemning a decision by the U.S. Justice Department to cancel hundreds of grants to community organizations, including those that fund crime-victim advocacy and gun-violence prevention.

According to The Washington Post, the millions of dollars in grants also support nonviolent youthful offenders, mental health resources for local police, efforts to avert opioid-related deaths and hate crimes.

Just like it takes a village to raise a child, state lawmakers said getting a proposed $252 billion spending plan over the finish line requires extensive support from their families that often goes unnoticed.

The state budget, now 23 days, is testing lawmakers' ability to balance work and family as most schools across the state held spring break over the last two weeks — forcing several policymakers to bring their children to Albany as spending negotiations continue.

New York state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said Wednesday after meeting with Gov. Kathy Hochul and state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins that leaders are getting closer to a state budget deal, but no handshake just yet.

“We’re still talking, things are moving,” he said. “It’s not done.”

State lawmakers bought themselves another two days to pass a state budget, now 22 days late. They passed an extender to bridge the funding gap for state services and payroll from Wednesday when the current extender expires, through Thursday.

Deputy Senate Majority Leader Mike Gianaris told reporters the most likely scenario at this point seems to be a budget deal later this week with voting on budget bills spilling into early next week.

New York state lawmakers are divided on Gov. Kathy Hochul's budget proposal to let 18-year-olds work as correction officers in state prisons to ease the ongoing staffing shortage.

Hochul is pushing to lower the minimum age of correction officers down from 21 after firing about 2,000 officers who participated in last month's illegal wildcat strike — fueling tensions in prisons that were already battling a shortage of 2,000 officers.

Gov. Kathy Hochul says there is light at the end of the state budget tunnel, which could include a watering down or tabling of her push for legislation related to the wearing of face masks in the commission of a crime.

“Certainly, Monday and Tuesday will be important days for us,” she said while hosting an Easter egg roll at the New York State Executive Mansion on Saturday.

Multiple New York lawmakers said Friday a last-minute budget debate remains unsettled to amend state Education Department standards for religious and non-public schools in the budget, now 18 days late.

With a conceptual deal on discovery about done, leaders are expected to revisit the debate to make it easier for nonpublic schools to satisfy state Education Department guidelines to teach a curriculum that's substantially equivalent to public districts.

State lawmakers are heading home for a long Easter weekend still with no budget, but some progress.

With changes to the state’s discovery laws, or how evidence is shared between the prosecution and the defense, largely wrapped up, focus is shifting to the remaining budget items.

If you have a child with a learning disability, a hearing issue or a speech impediment, he or she may need what’s called “early intervention." These are evaluations and therapeutic help for young children who may have developmental delays and/or disabilities.

The Agencies for Children’s Therapy Services, or ACTS, is an association of 40 early intervention agencies which provide services both in-home and in community settings. Each year, they serve over 30,000 infants, toddlers and preschoolers across New York state.

New York state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said Wednesday night that state leaders have reached a deal on discovery reform, which has held up budget talks for over two weeks, and made significant progress on other policy items in the spending plan.

After a roughly one-hour leaders meeting with Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday evening, Heastie told Spectrum News 1 the meeting went well.

As the announcement of a deal to make changes to New York’s discovery laws pushed relentlessly by Gov. Kathy Hochul appeared imminent Wednesday, state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie is getting a share of the credit for an unconventional maneuver.

Hochul, who has been adamant that she won’t sign a budget that doesn’t include a discovery solution that is up to her standards, acknowledged the assist Wednesday.

With a compromise on discovery changes in reach, New York state leaders are expected to return their attention to Gov. Kathy Hochul's controversial proposal to expand forced psychiatric treatment for New Yorkers with severe mental health conditions.

Religious leaders from around the state rallied in the Capitol on Tuesday opposing the governor's plan to change involuntary commitment criteria — a stance most Democrats in the Legislature have taken since Hochul announced her policy agenda in January.

New York state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie announced Tuesday that he has come to a compromise with the five New York district attorneys on changes to the state’s discovery laws. Gov. Kathy Hochul has yet to give the plan her OK as the state budget remains in limbo.

Discovery is the process of evidence exchange between the prosecution and the defense, and Hochul has said that loopholes in 2019 reforms have led to cases being dismissed on technicalities when trivial items are not turned over within the timetable required.

New York state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie announced a framework compromise between the state’s district attorneys and legislative leadership regarding the state’s discovery laws.

Discovery is the formal process of exchanging information about witnesses and evidence between the prosecution and the defense in a case that they’ll present at a trial. It’s been amended multiple times since it overhauled in 2019.

New York state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, one of the “three people in a room” who hammer out the contours of a state budget, announced Tuesday that progress was being made on one of the stickier issues holding up the spending plan: Discovery.

He told Capital Tonight that over the last four days, he and his staff, working with the five New York City district attorneys, came up with a framework of a deal on the issue that he presented to his conference Tuesday.

As they negotiate separate spending packages, New York state and federal officials are pointing the finger at each other — clashing over their opposing budget strategies.

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Monday said the threats of drastic federal cuts and the instability of the market, spurred by President Donald Trump's ongoing trade war, is not pushing her to finish the state budget, now over two weeks late, any sooner.

Gov. Kathy Hochul told New Yorkers Monday that a budget deal will come “in the near future” as she continued to double down on making sure her proposed changes to the state’s discovery laws, or how evidence is shared with the defense, make the final package.

For now, she said the back and forth is mostly inside baseball.

With New York’s state budget being almost two weeks past due, Gov. Kathy Hochul said she’ll continue “to keep up the fight” for New Yorkers.

“Everyone knows what I’m standing for, and I’m not wavering on my belief that we need to make some significant reforms so we can say that this budgeting process is over,” she told NY1 political anchor Errol Louis on “Inside City Hall” Monday.

With the state budget over 11 days late and no end in sight to negotiations, freshmen state lawmakers are getting a real taste of what Planet Albany's made of.

A late state budget may be business as usual in Albany, but it's a brand new process for those who took office in January.

One of the issues holding up the state budget is a push to institute a mask ban, though one of proposal’s authors would prefer you didn’t label it “a ban."

Hudson Valley Democratic state Sen. James Skoufis would prefer the proposal be called “a crackdown on masked menacing."

It’s Gov. Kathy Hochul’s way or the no budget way.

With no budget deal and the governor digging in, lawmakers passed a budget extender to get them through an abbreviated break for Passover until Tuesday. They were scheduled for a two-week break.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers are at a standstill over how to spend upwards of $252 billion in a state budget that’s already over a week late.

The negotiations continue amid economic uncertainty over tariffs, and federal cuts aimed at city and state programs.

Top Democrats continue to hash out budget language to expand forced treatment for people suffering from severe mental health issues after two unprovoked, violent attacks in New York City this week injected new life into the debate.

Republican state Sen. Stephen Chan represents the part of Brooklyn where a schizophrenic man attacked four young children with a meat cleaver earlier this week.

With the mood at the state Capitol souring by the day, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie threw a curveball: A bill which would make it so that lawmakers don’t have their paychecks withheld for a late budget— if the governor inserts policy proposals into her pitch.

In an interview with Capital Tonight’s Susan Arbetter, Heastie explained the move.

As first reported by WNYC’s Gothamist, New York Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie is proposing legislation that will continue paychecks to lawmakers if the budget is late and if the governor includes unrelated policy items in the spending plan.

The proposal comes as the legislature and the governor appear to be stalled on a variety of policy issues in budget talks.

New York budget negotiations are "stuck," state leaders said Tuesday, as they debate criminal justice reforms and Gov. Kathy Hochul's proposed changes to discovery laws.

Top Democrats are divided to compromise on the evidence sharing changes the governor wants after pressure from district attorneys from across the state.

Lawmakers are getting impatient with Gov. Kathy Hochul.

“The later the budget is, the more the governor gets blamed," said Deputy Senate Majority Leader Mike Gianaris. "If she wants to go through that route that other governors have gone through, she can figure it out herself."

A late state budget could be a blessing in disguise. As of April 1, Gov. Kathy Hochul didn’t know about President Donald Trump’s tariff plan and the stock market’s impending decline.

“People are worried about Social Security, they’re worried about pensions, they’re worried about their stock crashing!” Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the Democratic State Senate Majority Leader in Albany, said Tuesday.

Two prominent downstate district attorneys showed up at the state Capitol bright and early Monday to make the case for Gov. Kathy Hochul's proposed discovery reforms, as Hochul decided to throw a few curveballs into negotiating a budget that will be a week late at the strike of midnight Tuesday.

An extender was passed to bridge the funding gap to Wednesday.

Another state budget extender was passed Monday by the New York state Legislature and signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul to keep the government running through Wednesday and ensure state employees are paid on time.

New York lawmakers returned to the state Capitol in Albany on Monday as state budget negotiations continue, now nearly a week past the deadline.

Medicaid reimbursement rates are being brought up again as state leaders negotiate the budget. Some nursing homes are again pushing to raise rates, saying they can't maintain operations, but others argue current funds need to be managed better.

“In here is better than wonderful. It’s like a family,” said Lucretia Campbell, who was a patient at Waterville Residential Care Center about a year ago for rehabilitation.

Child care funding is one of the many issues still on the negotiation table after Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers failed to hit their April 1 budget deadline.

Legislators raised the alarm over a funding fight between City Hall and Hochul’s office that could jeopardize a voucher program used by tens of thousands of poor families in the five boroughs.

State leaders continue to consider a backroom budget proposal to make it easier for nonpublic schools to satisfy state Education Department guidelines to teach a curriculum that is substantially equivalent to public districts.

Multiple lawmakers Thursday said the proposal remains on the table as negotiations persist with no end in sight.

Lawmakers passed another budget extender Thursday to keep the government funded, and headed home for the weekend with the extender keeping the lights on through Monday and no guarantee of a budget deal by then.

Gov. Kathy Hochul told reporters Thursday that she’s in it for the long haul.

Albany is moving through the familiar choreography of creating an annual state spending plan while it’s quite possible that whatever the leaders come up with will be blown to bits later in the year by federal cuts.

Republicans in Washington are looking to cut fraud, streamline government and make the 2017 tax cuts permanent before they expire at the end of the year. To do that, they will need to pass deep cuts to the federal budget, including to Medicaid, education and transportation.

The New York state budget is officially late with no clear end in sight. If you’re looking to gain insight for an office pool or a friendly wager on when it will be completed, don’t ask Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie.

“I’m not helping anybody’s betting odds,” he told Spectrum News 1.

On the eve of the state budget deadline, a deal remains well out of reach.

New York state Budget Director Blake Washington acknowledged to reporters Monday that the debate over changes to the state’s discovery laws has Gov. Kathy Hochul doubling down. When asked if discovery is an area where the governor was not interested in compromise, Washington answered in the affirmative.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers are just hours away from missing their midnight deadline for the state budget.

“We may or may not make April 1,” the governor said on March 28 on Fox 5.

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s attempt to amend the Democratic-led state Legislature’s recent changes to the criminal justice system are yet again at the forefront of state budget negotiations.

This time, Hochul wants to change the way prosecutors hand over evidence to the defense, what’s known as discovery laws.

The MTA sucks a lot of the oxygen out of the room in Albany during state budget season, but upstate transit needs significant investments as well.

It’s a fight that state Sen. Jeremy Cooney is ready to engage in as state Senate Transportation Committee chairman.

New York state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie told reporters Thursday afternoon that state budget negotiations are “kind of at a standstill” and reiterated his frustration with the amount of policy that gets included in the state’s spending plan every year.

“Things are kind of, kind of at a standstill. We’re going to pass this debt service bill and the members will go home, do work in their districts and we’ll pick it back up next week,” Heastie said.

Although it’s looking like Gov. Kathy Hochul and legislative leaders won’t make their April 1 budget deadline, they appear to be in agreement on a big-ticket item for the governor: an all-day ban on cellphones in schools, known as “bell-to-bell.”

“The majority of the members are more comfortable with a bell-to-bell approach, they really are,” state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, a Westchester Democrat, said.

Less than a week out from the April 1 state budget deadline, there appears to be significant movement on at least one of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s top demands: a bell-to-bell cell phone ban in schools.

State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins updated reporters on the progress of negotiations Wednesday, a process she described as “at the end of the middle” but “tedious” as a result of uncertainty over federal funding. Stewart-Cousins indicated that making the April 1 deadline appears unlikely, but those close to the process have suggested it does not appear the delay will push past mid April.

New York state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, using her Albany lingo, told reporters Wednesday afternoon that state budget negotiations have reached “the end of the middle” but that talks remains impacted by President Donald Trump’s agenda in Washington that could bring various government cuts.

“The process is tedious because what we see on the horizon coming from our Republican colleagues in Washington,” Stewart-Cousins said.

It looks like Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed bell-to-bell cellphone ban has some critics among lawmakers and school administrators.

Last week, Capital Tonight spoke with New York’s Superintendents’ Association and School Boards Association about why they are pushing for less stringent rules around cellphones.

With the annual April 1 state budget deadline looming, Gov. Kathy Hochul says she’s warning New Yorkers about possible federal funding cuts to major services, including Medicaid programs and school lunches.

Meanwhile, a group of Albany Democrats want her to fight back by refusing to send regularly scheduled state tax dollars to the White House.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and state legislative leaders are wrapping up their first week of budget talks. By all accounts, discussions remain at a surface level, and headed in the right direction despite a curveball from the governor: a late push for some sort of restriction on wearing masks in public. A previous law went by the wayside amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jack O’Donnell, strategist and founder of O’Donnell & Associates, told Spectrum News 1 that even with the push for a mask policy, things still appear to be relatively tame.

There was significant outrage among both moderate and left-wing Democrats over U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer’s decision last week to vote to advance the Republican continuing resolution without asking for anything in return.

At the same time, Gov. Kathy Hochul and legislative leaders are currently negotiating a state budget without explicitly addressing the probability of big federal budget cuts coming down the pike.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Thursday she is worried about the impact of President Donald Trump’s executive order calling for the shutdown of the U.S. Department of Education.

The governor was at Eagle Point Elementary School in Albany, a place she said relies heavily on the federal government for subsidizing school lunches. According to Hochul, Albany County gets $6 million from the federal government for student school breakfasts and lunches and elimination of the Education Department could jeopardize that.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed a bell-to-bell ban on cellphones in schools in her executive budget, along with a $13.5 million appropriation to implement the ban.

While the proposal has the support of the teachers’ unions, there are a couple of other ideas floating around that aren’t as stringent as the governor’s that are gaining traction.

Lawmakers expect a fairly peaceful budget process this year, but Gov. Kathy Hochul and legislative leaders are at odds over how much rental assistance to put in the annual spending plan as they look to reverse the state's ongoing shortage of affordable housing.

The governor isn't backing $250 million the Senate and Assembly proposed in each one-house budget to create a Housing Access Voucher Program and remains focused on building up a lacking housing supply instead.

The "mothership" landed in Albany on Monday — the traditional kickoff of the budget negotiation process. Known more formally as the General Budget Conference Committee, the meeting has been billed in recent years as an exercise in transparency, but in reality the rest of the process outside of that 20 minutes of formality will take place almost entirely behind closed doors.

“Now that the [one-house budgets] have been passed, we’re ready to go to work,” state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie told reporters. “At some point, we’ll walk out holding hands.”

The Rockefeller Institute delivered its suggested overhaul of New York state's school funding formula in December. Since then, neither Gov. Kathy Hochul nor the two legislative houses have adopted more than a few of the think tank’s 32 recommendations.

According to attorney Michael Rebell, executive director of the Center for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia, the few data points that have been updated in the executive and one-house budgets have harmed districts that serve the most vulnerable students.

Nearly 400 mayors and local officials from across New York sent a letter to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and state legislative leaders asking the state to continue increasing funding for small governments as state budget negotiations take place in Albany, the New York state Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials (NYCOM) announced late last week.

Known as AIM, or aid and incentives for municipalities, cities and towns received a $50 million boost in unrestricted funding in last year’s budget following an aggressive campaign from local leaders, the first increase in 15 years. These state funds are used by small governments to pay for things like supplies and wages for police officers and firefighters.

The heads of state agencies charged with sealing about 5 million criminal records did not ask New York lawmakers to target additional funding in the upcoming budget to complete the task, and maintain they have the required resources to get it done by the mandated deadline.

A policy known as the Clean Slate Law makes 5 million criminal records in the state eligible to be sealed by Nov. 16, 2027.

Both houses of the New York state Legislature on Thursday voted to adopt their one-house budget proposals, their rebuttals to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s executive budget pitch that will fuel the negotiation process as Hochul and legislative leaders work to come up with a deal by April 1.

Democratic leaders have aggressively pushed an “affordability” agenda this year in the wake of November’s election in which they were widely seen as being out of touch with voters.

This week, the New York legislative houses released their budget proposals in the next stage of the state budgeting process.

Nathan Gusdorf, executive director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, joined Capital Tonight on Wednesday to help make sense of the proposals and what they mean for the state’s fiscal future.

While not reminiscent of the battle over Foundation Aid that took place at this time last year, with the release of one-house budgets Tuesday, there is daylight when it comes to education policy and funding between Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal and that of legislative leaders.

When it comes to a cell phone ban in schools, Hochul is gearing up to push her bell-to-bell proposal across the finish line when the state budget is due April 1, with the backing of the powerful New York State United Teachers union and other education groups.

New York lawmakers have included a correction to the overtime tax credit in the budget proposals, which previously excluded some farms from receiving the credit, industry advocates said Wednesday.

Prior to the correction, the law, which mandates farmers pay overtime to workers after a decreasing number of hours, didn’t allow farms that operate through a management company or payroll company to receive the tax credit meant to help offset the increased costs.

Two of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s big proposals — a cellphone ban in schools and tax rebate checks for New Yorkers — may not survive state budget negotiations, which have now begun in earnest ahead of the April 1 deadline.

“What a radical concept, the thought that students should be paying attention to their teachers!” Hochul said on Tuesday in Albany, building off her successful crusade against social media targeting minors.

With New York state on Monday declaring the illegal corrections officer strike over, lawmakers are still reacting as the state budget process moves into a phase many on the picket lines had hoped to use to their advantage.

While always highly unlikely, a top-line demand of those on strike was a legislative repeal or significant revision of the HALT Act, which limits solitary confinement and replaces elements of it with rehabilitative programming.