Topsy-Turvy Budget
BY JOHN TOSCANO

photo Einar Einarsson Kvaran Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,

From all indications, when New York state's fiscal year begins this Sunday, April 1, there will be no new 2007 budget in place- possibly leading to a shutdown of government services until Governor Eliot Spitzer and state legislative leaders settle their differences and negotiate a compromise budget.

Spitzer has been non-committal about what his plans will be if he's presented with a no-budget situation on Sunday.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said earlier this week there should be no disruption of government. Republican Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said it was still possible for the parties to get the budget done on time, but this sounds more like wishful thinking at this point.

Spitzer, working on his first budget as governor, has said the important thing is to get a good budget, not necessarily an on-time budget.

Former Governor George Pataki managed to get on-time budgets during the last two years of his administration, but for the 20 years preceding that, the budgets were late.

The main hangups this year are disagreements between Spitzer and Bruno over the governor's proposed $1.4 billion Medicaid cuts and his plans to direct more state school aid to needy districts, which has run into strong opposition from senators from Long Island.

Another disruptive factor has been Bruno's adding in several million dollars worth of spending on the budget proposed by Spitzer.

Spitzer, in only the third month of his first term, has run into dogged opposition to his Medicaid cut plan from hospital and nursing home operators and Local 1199, the hospital workers' union, which faces layoffs if the governor's plan goes through.

In a recent statement, Spitzer defended the proposed $1.4 billion cuts in the healthcare program for the poor, which is the costliest segment of the state budget at about $45 billion annually.

Spitzer stated: "If the state is to move forward, we must reform the healthcare delivery system. We must place our focus on people, not large institutions. By offering reforms on how we manage the care of high-need individuals, such as the elderly, the disabled and those with multiple medical conditions, we can better manage the care of these individuals while saving the state millions of dollars in the future."

The governor's healthcare proposal seeks to encourage 900,000 uninsured New Yorkers to obtain Medicaid coverage, while at the same time restructuring the state's healthcare system, including expanding Child Health Plus to assure that more than 1.3 million New Yorkers will have access to much-needed health insurance.

The Republican senate's response has been that the state must preserve the quality of care for patients, including $544 million in fund restoration and improved prescription drug coverage for seniors.

Spitzer noted, however, that Bruno and the legislature's upper house had not issued a healthcare bill, which he said raised questions about the senate's commitment to a timely budget.

The impasse over school funding results from Spitzer's policy of directing more school aid to more needy districts while the Republican senate complaint that the governor's plan denies the Long Island school districts what they have received in the past, a situation that must be remedied.

State Senator Dean Skelos of Nassau County, the Deputy Senate Majority Leader met with Spitzer to discuss the issue last week and conveyed Bruno's position.

Reportedly, the governor and his budget experts, told Skelos that under the governor's plan, Long Island residents would be compensated for slightly less school aid because they would be receiving property tax rebates. At the end of the meeting, there was no movement by either side.

To achieve his school and education aims, Spitzer had proposed adding $1.4 billion to the current $17 billion allotted for school aid and directing most of the increase to high-needs schools.

Up to this point in the budget battle, Spitzer's disagreements with and occasional emotional outbursts at Bruno have relegated Silver to a less contentious role in the budget negotiations. This can also be attributed to the fact that Spitzer and Silver are both Democrats and New York City received most of the new education funds that Spitzer proposed in the budget.

Spitzer also found that the changes Silver and the Democratic majority in the Assembly proposed making to his budget "addressed health care in a way that will permit us to have a meaningful negotiation".

Spitzer said he respected Silver and his conference members "because they have worked within the existing framework of the budget and exercised some fiscal restraint".