Assessing the New York state budget

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Gov. Kathy Hochul.

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Three prominent think tanks of varying political stripes agree that the state budget just adopted by Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Legislature leaves a lot to be desired.

The Citizen Budget Commission labeled the spending plan “a short sighted budget.”

“The extremely late $254 billion State budget virtually ignores the double-whammy threat posed by looming massive federal budget cuts and a possible recession. Instead of holding funds aside, lawmakers skyrocketed spending, slashed recession reserves, and sabotaged the State’s fiscal foundation. The budget simply is unaffordable.”

The Empire Center concluded the $146 billion spending plan calls for “an unusually large increase in spending despite growing risks to the state’s economic outlook.”

The think tank’s analysis found:

• The state-funded portion of the budge increases spending by $12.6 billion from last year, or 9.5 percent. That’s four times the inflation rate. The increase does not include $7 billion allocated to bail out the state unemployment insurance fund.
• Aid to school districts is up 4.5 percent despite declining enrollment.
• The budget assumes a 6.5 percent increase in revenues, up from the 4.1 percent bump assumed in the governor’s initial proposal.

Meanwhile, Reinvent Albany took lawmakers to task for adding $4.4 billion in new corporate subsidies, most of them reimbursable tax credits.

“New York State is spending roughly $5 billion a year in taxpayer funds on corporate subsidies, plus local governments are spending another $7-8 billion, totaling roughly $12 billion spent every year by taxpayers on handouts to businesses that provide very little payoff to the public.”

Tax credits for film and television production account for $2.6 billion of the new subsidies, which Reinvent Albany termed “a truly unconscionable waste of public funds.” Also included: $1 billion in new Excelsior tax credits pegged to job creation.

The budget failed to identify the cost of subsidies of three semi-conductor projects, Reinvent Albany said.

Elsewhere, New York Focus, the Albany-based investigative reporting center, has published a digestible guide to the budget, along with a number of analytical stories.

The Buffalo News offered an analysis focused on the budget’s impact on Western New York.