Hochul's budget: what's in it and what questions remain

Highlights of each section as compiled by our Capitol Bureau.

Good afternoon — it’s Tuesday and Squirrel Appreciation Day.

In today’s CapCon:

• Gov. Kathy Hochul released her $252 billion executive budget proposal.

• Here are highlights of what’s in it and what we learned about some of the top items she’s proposing.

• Committee meetings scheduled for Wednesday and the Assembly has scheduled a hearing on horseshoe crabs.

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(Lori Van Buren/Times Union)

🔎 Hochul’s budget is fueled by revenue the state didn’t know was coming

Gov. Kathy Hochul wants to increase spending in the next fiscal year by $15 billion compared to the state budget enacted last April.

The total price tag of the spending plan laid out by Hochul Tuesday is $252 billion, fueled by a new tax on managed care organizations and higher-than-expected income and sales tax receipts this year and next.

“This will be a $252 billion budget funded by revenue that is up nearly 8 percent and, importantly, we’ve maintained our reserves at historic highs of more than $21 billion,” Hochul said. “We’re investing more in New Yorkers because we have more resources to do so.”

There were a lot of questions around the details of some of the proposals in Hochul’s State of the State last week. We got some more clarity today on several top items but there are still several unknowns heading into budget talks.

First, let’s try something fun today for all of you: a reader poll!

There are a few other topline numbers I know you’ll all be interested in. Let’s start there.

• State Operating Funds: $144 billion of the $252 billion in all funds spending. That’s an increase of $10.5 billion, or 7.9%.

• Medicaid Spending: $35.4 billion. That’s a $4.3 billion increase, according to the state Division of Budget.

• School aid: $37.4 billion. That’s an increase of $1.7 billion over last year.

Now that we’re done with that, here’s today’s game plan. I’m going to link you to the 10 budget bills now online and tell you what’s in them that we were waiting for.