While late budgets are nothing new in New York, one thing has always kept talks moving forward: Until a deal is reached, state lawmakers go without pay.
Carl E. Heastie, the speaker of the State Assembly, wants to change that.
With this year’s budget talks now a week past the April 1 deadline, Mr. Heastie has introduced a bill to reduce a governor’s leverage to force legislative leaders to come to a budget agreement by essentially withholding their pay.
At issue is the long-running practice of governors’ shoehorning contentious policy priorities — such ascriminal justice reforms to the number of charter schools — into state budget negotiations they oversee.
“Governors get to throw in whatever they want — they still get paid,” Mr. Heastie said. “But then if the Legislature takes up their prerogative to want to have any say in the policy, we run out of time, and they’re like, ‘Oops, you don’t get paid.’”
Under Mr. Heastie’s proposal, lawmakers would only go unpaid during overtime budget talks if negotiations remained policy-free and anchored in fiscal matters.
He said the proposal, first reported by Gothamist, would ensure that the executive and legislative branches of government were on an even playing field when it came to state policy.
“It’s just insulting for any governor to believe that not paying people is going to make them walk away from their principles,” Mr. Heastie said in an interview.
A spokesman for Gov. Kathy Hochul derided the proposal. “If the highest-paid state legislators in America are worried about their paychecks, there’s a much easier solution: Come to the table and pass a budget that includes Governor Hochul’s common-sense agenda,” said Avi Small, the governor’s press secretary.
The pay dispute carries high stakes in New York, where state lawmakers, who earn $142,000 annually, are the highest paid in the United States. Ms. Hochul, who is paid $250,000, also has the highest governor’s salary in the country.
Unlike the omnipresent threats of shutdown at the federal level, late budgets at the state level rarely affect everyday New Yorkers, as lawmakers regularly pass budget extensions to pay for state operations, legislative staff members and even Ms. Hochul’s salary. Only lawmakers feel the sting of missed paydays.
Many in the Assembly supported the proposal — though they stressed that the measure was less about pay than fairness.
“The Legislature is an equal partner,” said Linda Rosenthal, an assemblywoman representing the Upper West Side of Manhattan. “It’s not our job to just quietly capitulate to what any governor wants.”
Will Barclay, the leader of the Republican Assembly minority, criticized the proposal as “the clearest signal of how bad New York’s budget process has gotten,” but declined to say whether he would support the bill.
In the State Senate, few were eager to weigh in on the proposal. But many expressed frustration with how Ms. Hochul had front-loaded budget talks with policy discussions. The governor, Mr. Heastie and Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the majority leader, have not met to negotiate since Saturday, two sources familiar with the matter said.
Senator Pat Fahy, a Democrat whose district includes the capital and who previously served in the Assembly, did not want to take a position on Mr. Heastie’s bill. When budgets are late, she said, the nerves and anxiety of members rises.
“What is compounding it this year is the onslaught of daily news, if not hourly news, of additional cuts from the federal government, she said. “So I think all of us are feeling the pressure.”
Ms. Hochul, however, has not given any hint of feeling pressure to pass a budget.
“I’m truly not in any rush. I will stay here as long as it takes to get the budget I believe delivers for New Yorkers,” Ms. Hochul said last week, adding later: “Summers are nice here, too.”
A budget deal is not expected until next week at the earliest. Mr. Heastie told reporters yesterday that leaders were too hung up on questions about discovery reform and a potential mask ban to begin hashing out a fiscal portion of the budget.
Mr. Heastie said that he was confident the pay measure would be supported in the Assembly. A spokesman for Ms. Stewart-Cousins said the legislation was under review.
Even if the bill were to pass both houses however, it is unlikely to earn the signature of Ms. Hochul. That leaves Democratic lawmakers, who hold a narrow supermajority, in position to override her veto.
“It’s the last possible thing you want to do,” Ms. Rosenthal said. “But you know, just as the governor has in her pocket the ability to put everything into one bill, we have in our pocket the ability to override a veto.”
Grace Ashford covers New York government and politics for The Times.
Benjamin Oreskes is a reporter covering New York State politics and government for The Times.
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