Gulf still large in state budget fight
BYLINE: Tom Precious, The Buffalo News, N.Y.
Mar. 21--ALBANY -- After hammering each other for weeks in separate appearances, Gov. Eliot L. Spitzer and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno brought their state budget bashing tour together Tuesday for a onehour public session that illustrated again how far apart the sides remain.
Billed as a session to try to resolve some of the fiscal fissures, the meeting in Spitzer's office turned into an assault by Spitzer, along with his legislative allies, on the Senate Republican budget plan, which they described as unaffordable and a "status quo" budget that rewards special interests.
"I think it's even," Bruno, RBrunswick, said of the session with the Democratic governor and the other legislative leaders who didn't back his fiscal effort. "There's five of them and one of me."
For New Yorkers, the stakes are high: This fight will determine how much local schools get from Albany, whether hospitals and nursing homes will be required to tighten their purse strings, and how deeply property taxes will be cut with Albany's help over the next couple of years.
Spitzer told Bruno that his budget numbers resembled "three card monte."
"Every time we look underneath to find the money, it's not there," he said of the $4.9 billion in additional money that the Senate believes is available for the budget.
Bruno said Spitzer's budget is not a plan to reform state spending but to cut critical health and education programs. "I keep hearing reform, reform, reform," Bruno said.
He said Spitzer's health plan would lead to 12,000 fewer health industry jobs.
But Bruno made it clear that his line in the sand was on education funding. He said the "budget is not going to get done" until Spitzer makes certain changes in his funding plan for schools. The Senate is chiefly concerned about schools on Long Island, where Spitzer wants to send 8 percent of the total aid increase, down from the 13 percent that Bruno said Long Island has traditionally received.
The debate affects dozens of suburban school districts across Western New York, which like their Long Island counterparts, have seen their aid increase held to 3 percent over this year, compared with double and triple that for urban and poorer rural districts. Spitzer said those high-needs districts need the money more than the wealthier suburban districts.
Besides education and health care, another major sticking point is how to give New Yorkers a $6 billion property tax cut. Spitzer wants to distribute the $6 billion over three years and target it to middle- class taxpayers. Bruno wants it over two years and available to all taxpayers and as a direct rebate check instead of through the state's STAR program.
With the April 1 start of the state's fiscal year approaching, Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown rushed to Albany Tuesday to try to get three pieces considered in the final plan. Brown wants the state to send a certain pot of state aid directly to the city instead of routing it through the city's control board. While such a step would weaken the control board, Brown insists it will better let his administration, and not the control board, determine policy.
"People understand why we need the flexibility," Brown said after meeting with Spitzer and legislative leaders.
Brown was also pressing for $10.5 million to hire additional police and $50 million in capital money for various economic development projects.
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