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Click here to learn more about the New York Budget Debacle!

APRIL

04.23.09

Reform? What reform?
Senate Democrats’ much-ballyhooed “reforms” fall well short of the broad changes needed to erase Albany’s “dysfunctional” label. “The Democratic proposals are at best a modest beginning that put off more meaningful changes to a later date.”
Read the editorial at: http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20090423/OPINION01/304239959/-1/OPINION

04.23.09

Paterson says Democrats rejected his offer to save STAR
Gov. Paterson says Sen. Bill Stachowski and the Senate Democrats rejected his offer to spare property tax-cutting STAR rebates from the budget ax, saying they preferred to spend the funds elsewhere. Paterson said he would preserve the rebate if Democrat leaders could find sufficient savings elsewhere in the overloaded budget. Now, Paterson—as well as the Assembly’s Democrat leader—are casting doubt on a new “plan” by Stachowski and the Senate Democrats to resurrect the rebate program. Elimination of the STAR rebates means hundreds of dollars in higher property taxes for Western NY homeowners.
Read more at: http://www.newsday.com/news/local/state/ny-ststar2312683467apr22,0,6223679.story

04.22.09
State Senate minority leader explains budget impact
Local business owners, community leaders, and county officials learned
the details of the state budget Thursday when New York State Senate
Minority Leader Dean Skelos addressed them at Vona’s Restaurant in
Oswego. The 2009-2010 budget includes a spending increase of $10.5 billion, or
seven times the rate of inflation, Skelos said. The budget, Skelos
claimed, includes the largest tax increase in the state’s history and
will cost a typical New York family approximately$2,400.

04.22-09

Business owners to visiting senator: 'We are hurting'

One after the other, they went around the room and aired their
concerns about the economic climate in Oswego County and New York State, and one after the other the message was the same—“we are hurting.” Business owners, agricultural representatives, and community leaders gathered at Vona’s Restaurant last Thursday for a question-and-answer luncheon with New York State Senator Dean Skelos, who serves as senate minority leader.
Read more at: http://www.valleynewsonline.com/viewnews.php?newsid=85482&id=1

MARCH

03-26-09

NYPA hike dead, Democrats push new utility tax
Despite the still-fresh criticism of their role in NYPA’s now-abandoned rate hike plan, state Democrats are pushing another hush-hush plan that would raise electric, natural gas and telephone bills for all New Yorkers. The new proposal, being hammered out in secret budget talks between Gov. Paterson and the NYC-based leaders of the Legislature, would amount to a six-fold increase in the current tax on utilities, and hits residential and small business customers hardest. The new tax would put a far larger bite on New Yorkers’ wallets than even the defeated NYPA plan. “It’s a lot of money, and it’s going to roll through to the utility bills,” said one consumer advocate.

03-26-09

GOP—not Aubertine—stopped NYPA rate hike
By making a public fuss over the NY Power Authority’s quiet plan to hike Upstate electric rate, State Senate Republicans forced the agency to backpedal. “Making noise clearly stopped it,” said WNY Republican Sen. George Maziarz. “And you can’t separate how the Power Authority reacted [with a rate hike] from what the Legislature did.” But that fact isn’t stopping Democrats like the North Country’s Darrel Aubertine from trying to claim credit. To be sure, Aubertine did play a role in the rate hike debacle—he voted for the raid that took $500 million from NYPA’s reserves just weeks before the agency realized it had a budget shortfall.

03-20-09

State Power Authority plans rate hike and bonuses

Just last month, Gov. David A. Paterson and the State Legislature, with the New York Power Authority’s blessing, approved a plan to “sweep” nearly $500 million from the agency to help balance the state budget — with promises that rates would not be affected and that the authority could afford the financial bailout. Now, Power Authority officials are quietly pushing a plan to raise electric rates for millions of upstate customers.

View the video report here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhVOBYpNaf4
Read more at: http://www.buffalonews.com/nationalworld/state/story/613429.html

03-20-09

Albany's secret budget talks a return to the 'dark ages'
State Democrats huddled at the Governor’s Mansion in Albany yesterday to continue their secret, Democrat-only discussions on the state budget, as any chance of public hearings on the $122 billion plan before the April 1 deadline faded. “It’s really going back to the dark ages when we didn’t do open budget (negotiations),” lamented one leading Albany reform advocate. Meanwhile, Gov. Paterson hasn’t been seen publicly in Albany for more than a week.
Read more at: http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/13199/albany-s-budget-debate-reverts-to-three-men-in-a-room

03-18-09

Double-digit pay raises for Senate staff
An investigative reporter uncovers millions of dollars in secret raises for Democrat Senate staffer—including double-digit boosts for staffers working for LI Sen. Craig Johnson, who won't comment on the post-election bonuses. Democrat Senate officials say their staffers are “extra dedicated” and deserve the pay hikes, even in the face of the state’s massive deficits, proposed tax hikes and budget cuts.
View the video report here:
http://news10now.com/Video/BuildASX.ashx?vids=86416&StationId=2&adId=10568
Read more at:
http://news10now.com/content/politics/135770/investigation-into-the-capitol/Default.aspx

03-17-09

Malcolm's massive mistake: The Senate Majority Leader cut out the GOP -
and is paying the price

It's understandable that Democrats who took over the state Senate in January would crave revenge against Republicans who treated them like dirt for the previous 43 years.
But relentlessly shutting the GOP out of decision-making - as Majority Leader Malcolm Smith is doing - is a huge strategic blunder.

03-13-09

Albany secrecy -- Public, legislators left out of deliberations

The state's Democratic leadership triumvirate has decided it's in the best interests of New Yorkers to shut them out of the budget process until the leaders have decided how to spend nearly $120 billion, levy billions of dollars in new taxes and close a $14 billion budget gap. Gov. David A. Paterson, Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver are taking a pass on reform and resorting to the same old behind-the-scenes negotiations that have characterized New York's dysfunctional government for years.
Read more at: http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20090313/OPINION01/303139953/0/OPINION

03/11/09

GOP senators claim they're blocked from budget

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — With Democrats in control of New York's Assembly, Senate and governor's office for the first time in decades, the party members are planning a new way to craft the state's $120 billion budget that may conflict with a 2007 budget reform law. Gone will be the separate Assembly and Senate budget bills that detail the positions of each house. Senate-Assembly conference committees required under a 2007 reform law will be dropped. If that new process of private — and some public — negotiation by the chambers' majority leaders with Gov. David Paterson doesn't work, the chambers could return to budget bills and public conference committees, legislators said.

03/09/09

Democrats have majority in Albany but no results yet

Democrats' dreams of remaking state government this year now that they control all the power centers at the Capitol so far remain figments of their imagination, with signs of familiar gridlock starting to emerge. While Democrats pledged last week to act on a financial package to head off a big spike in bus, train and subway fares downstate, nothing happened. And while the Assembly passed a bill designed to send fewer people to prison for minor drug offenses, it hasn't yet gone anywhere in the Senate.

03/06/09

Senate GOP outlines new cuts

Minority Republicans ask $1.2B more be trimmed from governor's request

ALBANY — State Senate Republicans on Thursday offered up an alternate plan to Gov. David Paterson's 2009-2010 budget which would cut an additional $1.2 billion from the $4.2 billion the governor would trim. The plan, which represents the new Senate minority's debut as a loyal opposition since losing their majority last November, would also abandon scores of new taxes and fee hikes proposed by the governor, including those on digital music downloads, sugared soda and auto rentals.

03/06/09

Small Business Backs Alternative Budget Savings Plan

"Small employers are encouraged to see a proposal advanced by the Senate Minority that rejects the tax and fee increases in the Executive Budget, and instead proposes balancing the budget through cuts, agency consolidations and other efficiencies. In addition to forcing the state to live within its means, this proposal would also help New York's economy by significantly cutting taxes for small businesses and small manufacturers.

03/06/09

State GOP proposes budget

ALBANY — The State Senate’s Republican minority on Thursday proposed an alternative state budget for the upcoming fiscal year that would include $4.2 billion in spending cuts pitched by Gov. David A. Paterson and slice an additional $1.3 billion. Read more at: http://www.buffalonews.com/nationalworld/state/story/598896.html

03/05/09

New York Senate Republicans propose budget alternative
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - New York Senate Republicans have proposed an alternative state budget that would include $4.2 billion in spending cuts pitched by Governor David Paterson and slice an additional $1.3 billion. They would also eliminate proposed new taxes and keep local property tax rebates and some business benefits other plans would cut. Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos calls the plan "a blueprint for helping middle-class families and small businesses."

03/03/09

Senate Leader won't budge on Upstate funding
NYC Democrat Malcolm Smith, Democrat leader of the State Senate, won't even consider critical funding for Upstate highway and transit projects, even as state government wrestles with a new financing plan for NYC's mass transit that could include billions of dollars in new taxes and tolls. "The (federal) stimulus package is taking care of upstate New York," Smith insists, even though the federal aid includes barely $1 billion for those projects, while Democrats are preparing to spend 4 times that amount on the perpetually cash-strapped transit agency.

03/03/09

Paterson: My budget plan could sink Buffalo redevelopment
Gov. Paterson says his plan to revamp the state's job-creating Empire Zone program could backfire on efforts to land the world-famous Bass Pro store that was to be the anchor of a $300 million Buffalo waterfront redevelopment plan. Paterson said the proposed store isn't worth the state investment in a project that promises to create hundreds of jobs and revitalize a blighted part of the Queen City. "The possibility of Bass Pro coming to downtown is a little bit bleaker than it was,” Paterson said. The comments drew an angry rebuke from the city's mayor and one-time Paterson ally.

Read the story at: http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/stories/2009/03/02/daily20.html

3/01/09
Senate Democrats defend lower tally of passed bills

In the first two months of this year's state legislative session, the Democratic-led Senate passed 17 bills. In the first two months of session last year, the Republican-led Senate passed 141 bills. "In the Senate now, it's worse than business as usual," said Sen. John DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse. "There's nothing being done."
Read more at:: http://www.syracuse.com/poststandard/stories/index.ssf?/base/news-3/123590135857840.xml&coll=1

FEBRUARY

2/26/09

Paterson: No regional balance in federal stimulus spending
In an interview with a NYC radio station, Gov. Paterson rejects concerns that federal stimulus money isn't being distributed fairly across the state, and may bypass hard hit Upstate communities. Republicans want to apply traditional regional formulas to the federal money so no region of the state loses out on the recovery effort.

2/17/09

Judge legislators' actions, not their words

2/03/09
Albany Revenues Plummet as Bonuses Drop 40%

02/01/09

Paterson’s political calculus

Maybe upstate New York’s polls should be careful what they wish for. After New York City types claimed the posts of governor, comptroller, attorney general, speaker of the Assembly and Senate majority leader, upstaters from Poughkeepsie to Pomfret have been howling over their absence in Albany.

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