The State Capitol, Albany NY.
ALBANY – The state budget may be completed in Albany, but there’s still plenty of work that needs to get done during the current legislative session.
Lawmakers are currently on break until April 21, but when they return, they hope to tackle several key issues, including minimum wage, the Dream Act, tax credits on education investment, property tax relief, charter schools, campus sexual assault, and much more.
Some of those issues were first addressed in the state budget process when the Governor included a lengthy list of initiatives into his executive budget. But most fell off the table during negotiations with the Assembly and Senate.
In the end, the $142 billion fiscal plan included only two significant sets of non-budgetary policy: Cuomo’s call for new ethics laws and education reforms, including an overhaul of the way teachers are evaluated.
But discussions about a higher minimum wage, criminal justice reforms, property tax relief, an education tax credit and the Dream Act — a measure that would provide financial aid to undocumented college students — were all pushed aside with promises that they’d be taken up in post-budget deliberations.
In addition to the list of state-wide initiatives, Chautauqua County is also hoping the legislature will take up its request for increasing sales tax by half a percent. Currently, the sales tax in Chautauqua County is 7.5 percent. County officials say increasing it by just half a percent more means $7 million more dollars in annual revenue, enough to close a looming budget gap while also providing property tax relief.
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