Original story published by the Albany Times Union
January 14, 2016
LOCAL IMPACTS
• Cuomo is proposing a $20 million contest to challenge local governments "to develop innovative consolidation action plans yielding significant and permanent property tax reductions."
The plan builds on Cuomo's property tax freeze program, launched in 2014, which was aimed at reducing redundancies by rewarding taxpayers of local governments that drafted plans to consolidate or share services by rebating tax increases so long as they stayed within the two-percent tax cap.
The group of municipalities that comes up with a plan that would produce "the greatest permanent reduction" in property taxes will win $20 million to implement it.
• Albany and Troy would also be among 10 high-poverty upstate communities eligible to compete for $25 million in anti-poverty funding through the proposed Empire State Poverty Reduction Initiative — an expansion of a program already in place in Rochester.
The 10 areas — which also include Syracuse, Binghamton, Oneonta, Buffalo, Utica, Elmira, Jamestown and Oswego — are each eligible for $500,000 in planning and implementation grants.
Local governments will be expected to work with the state, non-profits and businesses to devise "coordinated solutions to increase economic mobility" to compete for the remaining $20 million in grants to put those plans into motion with the help of matching private funding.
"Let us commit ourselves to the principle that in our great state no child should have to worry about where his or her next meal is coming from," Cuomo said.
• Cuomo also pledged $250 million to improve local drinking and wastewater infrastructure — mostly upstate.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT/TAXES
• Cuomo proposed nearly $300 million in new tax breaks for small business owners in New York through a plan that would drop the net income tax rate from 6.5 percent to 4 percent starting in 2017.
The governor said the proposal would impact 1 million small businesses in the state and bring the total small business tax relief since he took office to $1.2 billion by 2021.
• Many of Cuomo's economic development proposals focused on supporting the agriculture sector, including his plan to exempt farm vehicles from Thruway tolls.
• He also wants the state to create a new food and agriculture certification program run by the state that would certify New York grown products that claims to be all-natural or hormone free. Cuomo said there is a void now since many food claims have no legal basis.
"There is a burgeoning market around healthy food," Cuomo said. "Consumer skepticism is justified."
Although participation would be voluntary, Cuomo said companies that joined the program, known as New York Certified, would benefit from the labeling, which he said would support the purchase of New York food products.
• Cuomo also proposed $15 million to support clean energy job training programs to help the state's growing renewable energy and clean tech sector. He also said the state set a goal of having 150,000 solar installations in the state by 2020.
K-12 EDUCATION
• The governor pitched $2.1 billion in additional school aid over the next two years, including $991 million for the 2016-17 school year alone, which represents a 4.3 percent increase over last year.
$100 million would establish a Community Schools fund to transform "failing" high-need schools with mentorship and after-school programs, and medical, dental and social services
• The plan would adopt the Common Core task force's recommendations, including reduced testing, the development of local New York learning standards, and a four-year moratorium on the use of state test scores to evaluate teachers.
• $10 million in tax credits would reimburse teachers up to $200 for their purchases of classroom supplies
• A $150 million Education Tax Credit would help families offset tuition for non-public schools.
• Pre-K programs would receive a $22 million investment to accommodate an extra 2,000 to 2,500 three-year-olds.
HIGHER EDUCATION
• Cuomo seeks to extend the NYSUNY 2020 and NYCUNY 2020 programs, including the element that keeps tuition predictable but allows the state's public university system to raise tuition up to $300 a year.
• New capital matching grant funding from Empire State Development would devote $110 million to implement long-term economic development plans on SUNY and CUNY campuses.
• For $1 million in seed funding, a Bio-Science Venture Capital Competition program would award funds to the most promising bio-science start-ups and support the commercialization of technologies developed at state universities and research labs.
$3 million would create a Smart Transfer Program, which will allow students who attend early college high schools to earn associate degrees while in high school and then successfully transfer to a four-year college.
• Another $1 million would support reforms in career and technical education.
INFRASTRUCTURE
• Roughly half of $2.3 billion in one-shot settlement money at the state's disposal will be spent on infrastructure and transportation. The $1.04 billion plan for the Thruway — which includes money to keep tolls flat until 2020, to provide a tax credit for frequent travelers and to eliminate tolls for commercial agriculture vehicles (the latter two would last for three years) — would be paid for entirely by settlement money.
Asked why the one-shot money is being used on the Thruway, Budget Director Mary Beth Labate said, "People say that about lots of things until taxpayers — in this case Thruway drivers — start seeing the benefit in their pockets."
• The state Canal Corporation will be separated from the Thruway Authority and moved under the purview of the New York Power Authority. The canal system has perennially been viewed as a cash drag on the Thruway; it is also badly in need of costly upgrades.
ENVIRONMENT
• The environmental highlight of the proposed budget — an increase in the Environmental Protection Fund to $300 million from $177 million — was announced last week, but the governor outlined other environmental goals, including setting aside $100 million to help local governments fix aging water and sewer systems; earmarking $32.5 million in EPF for climate mitigation projects; and converting SUNY campuses to run on alternative energy by 2020.
• The governor also seeks to eliminate coal from the state's electrical power plants by 2020. State efforts would be made to help coal-fired plants to transition, he said.
Praise came from several environmental groups, including Riverkeeper, Scenic Hudson, Open Space Institute, Agricultural Stewardship Association, Audubon New York, the Sierra Club and The Nature Conservancy.
The additional funding for water and sewer system repairs will "ensure clean water and effective wastewater disposal — necessary services for public health, safety and sustainable growth," said Stuart Gruskin, chief conservation and external affairs officer for The Nature Conservancy.
Lisa Dix, state representative for the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal program, said the governor "enshrined himself as an international climate leader" by vowing to do away with coal-fired electricity in the state. With the growing abundance and decreasing price of natural gas, coal has a declining role in state electrical production. In September, coal accounted for about 1 percent of the state's power output, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. As recently as 2007, the year before the national economy tanked, coal produced 15 percent of the electricity generated in the state.
HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES
• One of the most sweeping element of the governor's agenda was the proposal for a $20 billion, five-year plan to address homelessness statewide. Half of that money would be used to construct or preserve 100,000 affordable housing units, with the rest being used over the same time frame to support shelters and other programs, notably the development of "supportive" housing, which is seen as key to aiding the chronically homeless.
To clamp down on what have been described as dangerous shelters, three fiscal watchdogs will be tasked with auditing and inspecting services at urban facilities: State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli will have statewide reach, while city-specific comptrollers Scott Stringer in New York City and Mark Schroeder in Buffalo will have more focused jurisdiction.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has feuded with the governor on a range of topics, was fine with the inspection plan. "That could be very consistent with our goal of making sure that every shelter gets fixed," he said.
• The governor also proposed $90 million to create "the most aggressive breast cancer screening operation in this country," including expanded services at health clinics and heightened monitoring by the state Division of Financial Services to monitor insurers to make sure care is being provided.
• Cuomo's paid family leave proposal would provide 12 weeks of "job-protected, employee-funded" leave to either bond with a new child or care for an ailing relative. The funding model would mimic the system used in Rhode Island that involves a nominal deduction from each paycheck. The maximum paid benefit would grow in stages to 50 percent of the state's average weekly wage by 2021. The New York Paid Family Leave Insurance Campaign was pleased, and said in a statement "we are one step closer to ensuring that no New Yorker has to choose between her family's health and financial security."
ETHICS
• In addition to his proposed cap on lawmakers' outside incomes, Cuomo wants limits on donations to political parties' "housekeeping" accounts (which can currently take unlimited sums) of $25,000, and to require disclosure of the identities of campaign "bundlers" that gather large numbers of contributions.
• The governor — whose open records retention policies have been criticized — is proposing "comprehensive reform" of the state's Freedom of Information Law. A bill memo said this would include amending "attorneys' fees" provisions and expediting FOIL appeals. In his speech, he said the law should apply equally to the Legislature, which is currently not subject to FOIL. The governor also proposes making both the Joint Commission on Public Ethics and Legislative Ethics Commission subject to both FOIL and the state's open meetings law.
• Cuomo proposed several new measures that would increase the effectiveness and transparency of the state's ethics and lobbying watchdog agency, JCOPE, which has been criticized for the perception that it is overly close with the Cuomo administration. Not included in a policy book detailing Cuomo's plans were any measures reforming a rule allowing a small minority of JCOPE commissioners to kill official investigations, which has been a point of criticism for the panel.
• Cuomo also supports convening a constitutional convention. The next statewide referendum on the question of holding one will take place in 2017. Cuomo wants to invest $1 million to "create an expert, non-partisan commission to develop a blueprint for the convention," according to his policy book, "authorized to recommend fixes to the current convention delegate selection process."
• One good-government group priority that did not appear to be fully addressed: Concerns about huge amounts of spending in the budget through opaque discretionary processes. Dick Dadey, executive director of the good-government group Citizens Union, said he spoke Wednesday morning with Cuomo's counsel, Alphonso David, and was told that the administration was "just beginning work on this important reform."
PUBLIC SAFETY
• An anti-terror initiative would allocate $40 million for more police and National Guard presence in New York City transit hubs and other area of critical infrastructure throughout the state.
• The governor also wants to spend an additional $4 million for enhanced training and gear for state troopers who might have to deal with terror threats. That would include purchase of high powered rifles, special body armor and helmets.
• And in a consolidation move the State Office of Counter Terrorism would be merged with State Police. Former New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly had earlier suggested that change in a Cuomo-sponsored study.
• The governor plans to reintroduce his proposal to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 18 from 16. The plan was rejected by the Republican-controlled Senate last year.
• Another proposal, announced earlier, would take $75 million in forfeiture funds from the Manhattan district attorney and use it for college-level classes for inmates while in prison. The idea has come up before only to be blocked in the GOP-led Senate. But using forfeiture funds pulls it out of budget talks.
Contributors: Chris Bragg, Bethany Bump, Jordan Carleo-Evangelist, Matthew Hamilton, Claire Hughes, Rick Karlin, Brian Nearing, Larry Rulison
