Hochul's four must-have items for a state budget deal

And should state lawmakers have police-like powers? One member of the Legislature thinks so.

Good afternoon — it’s Monday and National Cocktail Day.

In today’s CapCon:

• Gov. Kathy Hochul says she has four items on the top tier of her budget agenda.

• The CDPAP registration deadline has been extended through April 30.

• A new bill would allow state lawmakers to arrest you. Another would enact a mask ban, but only at protests and riots. Check out these New Bills of Note.

• Bills are moving this week to create a Utility Consumer Advocate, raise child labor penalties for the first time since 1991 and more.

• This Week in New York History: New York’s end to slavery, the 1911 Capitol fire and a suffragette.

Names in today’s CapCon: Gov. Kathy Hochul, Health Commissioner James McDonald, Maria Perrin, Sen. Andrew Lanza, Sen. Simcha Felder, Assemblyman Ron T. Kim, Matilda Joslyn Gage

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The state budget is due April 1. We’re keeping you updated on negotiations around the spending plan in the meantime.

(New York Governor’s Office)

💰 State budget talks could go beyond April 1 but Hochul’s not planning on it

It’s the start of the last full week before the state budget is due and we’re now getting into the thick of it.

(And there’s only about a week left to sign up for a free 30-day trial of CapCon.)

Gov. Kathy Hochul and leaders of the state Legislature met over the weekend to resume negotiations on the spending plan and will continue to meet this week. The goal is still to finish by April 1, Hochul said Monday, but talks could stretch past then.

“I’ve never done that before,” Hochul joked when I asked about passing the deadline. The last three state budgets have been approved after April 1. One was in May.

“I’m not aiming for a late budget. We always strive for an on-time budget,” Hochul added. “We are in overdrive in terms of trying to push this forward.”

But it’s also hard to predict when the state budget will be finalized because of how negotiations work, Hochul said. If you read CapCon on Friday, you already know what she’s talking about.

“The leaders take everything we talked about — they now have to go back to their conferences,” Hochul said. “Then they’ll bring back what the conferences say about what we thought we were getting close on and then we’ll go in (another) direction.”

The timing will ultimately depend on the progress made over the next week on the most divisive issues under discussion.

Lawmakers are here through Thursday but if things are going well, they could be asked to stay in Albany for the weekend to continue that back-and-forth.

🤝 What Hochul thinks will be most difficult to negotiate in the budget

What I really wanted to know Monday is how Hochul is thinking about these final days of negotiations.

So I asked her what issues she would consider to be the most difficult to negotiate with the Legislature over the next week. The budget can be fickle. There’s often only one or two things holding up a three-way agreement.

Hochul said she has four must-haves in the state budget, as of now.