April fool’s budget is no joke

We congratulate the hardworking legislators of the State of New York on passing the $120.9 billion budget on Sunday April 1 - only one day late.
State Senator George Onorato said “Governor Eliot Spitzer came out swinging with his first state budget, and I think it’s pretty clear that, when all was said and done, we all hit some important issues clear out of the park for the people of New York State.”
“We succeeded in enacting an historic increase in state education aid with a new formula that will serve to drive much of this funding to New York City and other high-needs school districts throughout New York State. We were able to take some steps towards restructuring and reining in the costs of Medicaid while restoring needed funding for hospitals and nursing homes. And we were also able to provide greater tax relief for many families and businesses throughout New York, while providing new health coverage opportunities for hundreds of thousands of uninsured children,” Onorato said.
The 2007-2008 budget good news includes $1.3 billion in property tax rebate checks to middle-class homeowners, $100 million for stem cell research and $1.8 billion in additional school aid.
The new education-aid formula directs more money to high-needs school districts. Universal pre-kindergarten was approved for four-year-olds statewide. Additionally, up to 100 new charter schools were approved statewide and New York City may get as many as 50 of them.
More good news is that the budget restored $90 million of the often-written-about cuts for hospitals and nursing homes. Medical insurance coverage was expanded to nearly 400,000 uninsured children. Businesses reaped $150 million in tax cuts too.
Lawmakers even found $1 million to provide better cellphone coverage along the Adirondack Northway following the death of a Brooklyn man whose car went off the roadway in the sub-zero days of January. He and his wife were stranded for 32 hours with no cellphone service.
The bad news about the budget is that Spitzer bypassed the requirement that the proposed budget measures sit on the lawmakers’ desks for three days before any action be taken. Therefore, many legislators found themselves once again voting on bills they had not read after top leaders cut deals behind closed doors.
“Ideally, the bills would have been on our desks for three days, because that would have allowed scrutiny by the public, the press and the members,” Assemblymember Mark Weprin lamented adding, “Unfortunately, we didn’t have a lot of time, and it needed to get done.”
Spitzer proudly proclaimed, “When all the surrounding dust settles and the public looks at what we accomplished, you will see that this budget hit every one of the objectives I laid out in the prior two months.”