What to expect on the state budget next week, cost cut for cannabis cultivators

Plus, we look at state funding for local governments in New York By The Numbers

Good afternoon — it’s Friday, and Goof Off Day.

FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 2024

TODAY’S CAPCON:

• It’s the final countdown: what to expect next week as the budget deadline looms

• Cannabis cultivators get a cost cut

• New York By The Numbers looks at flat state funding for local governments

🔨 Is Monday a Session Day? Yes.

☁️ Tonight’s Weather: Albany: Chance of snow, low 30s. New York City: Clouds and rain, low 40s (National Weather Service)

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(Jim Franco/Times Union)

🕕 So, what should we expect next week?

💰 Depending on who you talk to at the state Capitol, we’re either in the middle of budget season, or approaching the end.

Here’s the truth: no one knows when there will be a deal on the state budget, not even the people in the room negotiating it. 

Oh, before we go any further, though, I have to tell you the very funny results of our poll yesterday.

I asked who thought we’d have a deal on the state budget by March 28, and who thought it would come after.

• Three percent of you said we’d have a budget by next Thursday. 🙏

• But 97 percent said it would come after. 😭

At least the days of state budgets held up until August are gone (knock on wood, don’t make me regret typing this) but the timing hasn’t really been consistent.

• Last year, the budget was approved a month after the April 1 deadline. Gov. Kathy HOCHUL held it up to push criminal justice changes.

• The year before that, the budget was a bit over a week late.

A late budget can have consequences, though neither of the last two threw the state into chaos.

For one, members of the state Legislature don’t get paid after April 1 until they pass a state budget. With a salary of $142,000 each year, that’s no small amount. 

• But honestly, I’ve never spoken with a lawmaker who said that affected their decision-making.

• When they do agree on a spending plan, they receive any pay they missed during negotiations.

And for two, workers paid by the state don’t get their paychecks if the current year’s budget expires and new funding isn’t in place.

The first deadline for that is 12 p.m. on April 2, according to the state comptroller’s office. Both the governor’s office and the Legislature have been made aware of this.

• If there’s not a new budget approved by then, those workers won’t get paid.

• But lawmakers can pass an extension of the current year’s budget to avoid that, which is what happened last year.

But for three, the state budget helps determine everyone else’s budgets across the state.

Any entity — public or private — that receives funding from the state budget won’t know how much money they’re getting until it’s passed.

• That includes every municipality in New York and their respective school districts. 

New York City, for example, has a budget due by the end of June, and there are parts of this year’s state budget that would really make a difference there.

• Hochul has proposed $2.4 billion in aid for the city to help with an influx of more than 175,000 migrants in two years.

• And the Senate is proposing to roll New York City back into a state program that offers unrestricted aid to municipalities. (More on that later.)

School districts also need to know how much funding they’re getting from the state sooner rather than later. School budget votes are in late May.

In past years, school districts knew they would receive at least as much funding as they did the previous year, so they could use that to start planning their budgets.

But this year could be different:

• Hochul is proposing a change in the state’s funding formula for schools that would mean cuts for hundreds of school districts this year.

• The Legislature is against that plan, but negotiations will determine the final outcome.

Not to mention, the budget affects health care institutions, human service organizations, nonprofit groups and anyone else who receives state funding.

💵 But listen, the sky is not falling. Lawmakers and Hochul could still reach a budget deal over the next week.

I’ve learned a few tips over the years on how to know where budget talks stand: