The State Assembly leader says legislators should not be punished if a late budget is caused by policy disagreements unrelated to New York’s finances.
The State Assembly leader says legislators should not be punished if a late budget is caused by policy disagreements unrelated to New York’s finances.
The State Assembly leader says legislators should not be punished if a late budget is caused by policy disagreements unrelated to New York’s finances.
While late budgets are nothing new in New York, one thing has always kept talks moving forward: Until a deal is reached, state lawmakers go without pay.
Carl E. Heastie, the speaker of the State Assembly, wants to change that.
With this year’s budget talks now a week past the April 1 deadline, Mr. Heastie has introduced a bill to reduce a governor’s leverage to force legislative leaders to come to a budget agreement by essentially withholding their pay.
At issue is the long-running practice of governors’ shoehorning contentious policy priorities — such ascriminal justice reforms to the number of charter schools — into state budget negotiations they oversee.
“Governors get to throw in whatever they want — they still get paid,” Mr. Heastie said. “But then if the Legislature takes up their prerogative to want to have any say in the policy, we run out of time, and they’re like, ‘Oops, you don’t get paid.’”
Under Mr. Heastie’s proposal, lawmakers would only go unpaid during overtime budget talks if negotiations remained policy-free and anchored in fiscal matters.
He said the proposal, first reported by Gothamist, would ensure that the executive and legislative branches of government were on an even playing field when it came to state policy.