Western New York lawmakers score big victories in budget

Western New York lawmakers came out of last month’s budget negotiations with several key victories, for both Assembly Democrats and state Senate Republicans, though members of both parties have continuing priorities for the final few months of the legislative session.

Assembly Democrats were the big winners, with the passage of a statewide minimum wage increase and the most aggressive paid family leave act in the country, but several Buffalo leaders in the chamber had other items included that were priorities, some that they had fought for over several years.

Buffalo Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes, for example, has for the last few years pushed for funding of community schools, which offer services like legal advice, mentorship programs and mental health supports for students and their families in high poverty areas. This year $100 million in foundation fund money was allocated specifically for the formation of such schools, as was first proposed in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s plan. But a Peoples-Stokes bill setting aside another $75 million to be distributed by the state education department to districts that submit specific plans also made it into the spending plan.

The assemblywoman said that funding community schools is a smart investment because the services provided have positive ripple effects that can not only help children do better in school, giving them a foundation for success later on in life, but can help whole families get the help they need to do well for themselves and their neighborhoods.

“I think what we’re trying to do here is getting people to accessing the American dream, not just through education, but getting them prepared to be contributing citizens of the world,” Peoples-Stokes said.

At one point during negotiations it seemed as though a full $200 million would be set aside for the schools.

While the funding is only a drop in the bucket compared to what is needed to put community schools in all neighborhoods that need them, it is a good start, Peoples-Stokes said. In the coming years she and other supporters of the program will be able to take evidence of the good the schools are doing back to the legislature to push for more funding.

“I’m excited,” she said. “I think it is the right direction to go with education and that we will see the benefits of it in the future.”

Buffalo Assemblyman Sean Ryan also scored a victory, as he was one of the lawmakers pushing for a State University of New York tuition freeze, though he only got part of what he was seeking. While the assemblyman had pushed for a three-year freeze, in the end the hikes were only halted for one year.

Ryan also wanted to see funding go to the school system to make up for the loss in potential revenues another hike would have brought in. Cuomo did include $380 million in funding for SUNY, though he did not characterize the money as a replacement for the tuition freeze during his budget press conference.

“We don’t want any false victory of we saved the students from an increase, but then we starved SUNY,” Ryan said while negotiations were still underway.

Ryan said the end result was not everything he hoped for, but will help students this year.

“Can’t have it all,” Ryan said in a text message. “The students needed a break.”

While many Senate Republicans reluctantly voted to pass the minimum wage hike and paid family leave, measures that business groups often aligned with their conference fought hard to defeat, they too scored some significant victories, even if some were priorities they shared with their Assembly counterparts.

One such victory was the end of the Gap Elimination Adjustment, a financial mechanism installed under former Gov. David Paterson that allowed lawmakers to shift money allocated for schools to plug holes in the state budget, leaving many districts, particularly in suburban and rural areas, severely under-funded.

The phase out of the program will be done over one year after Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan insisted that Cuomo, who had a two-year phase out in his proposed plan, accelerate the elimination.

First-term state Sen. Rob Ortt campaigned on eliminating the funding mechanism. He and many other lawmakers on both sides of the aisle touted the change in law as a major step toward making sure that all school districts are properly funded.

The law that governs how municipalities that receive slot machine revenues from the Seneca Nation of Indians’ casinos in Western New York can spend those funds was also extended, with some amendments. However, Ortt’s push to flip the funding formula so that the host cities would get 75 percent and the state would get 25 percent of those revenues did not make it through.

Ortt, whose district includes Niagara Falls, the site of one of the casinos, acknowledged that the funding formula change was a starting point for negotiations, but said he was glad he could get the extension with some changes that will benefit some of the stakeholders.

“Obviously getting it extended is critical, but I think making improvements upon it is really critical,” Ortt said.

Ortt has also been pushing to expand programs to prevent and treat substance abuse, with a focus on opioids. In the final spending plan, $166 million was included to strengthen and broaden programming across the state.

Now, Ortt says, the push will continue to pass a package of laws meant to help curb what has been described as a crisis by healthcare officials.

“There’ll be legislation, a package of legislation, to address some things as well,” he said.

State Sen. Patrick Gallivan, a Republican whose district includes Wyoming County and portions of Erie, Livingston and Monroe Counties, said he felt the budget negotiation process went fairly well for his conference, though he noted that the governor wields great power in the negotiating process.

Gallivan said that while Cuomo was able to get his minimum wage and paid family leave proposals through, his conference was able to get a lot in return – school aid, parity in transportation funding for upstate, a tax cut for middle-income New Yorkers, a significant increase in funding to the Environmental Protection Fund – while also keeping other legislation they opposed, specifically the Dream Act, which would allow undocumented immigrant students to take advantage of state tuition assistance programs, out of the bills.

“We’ve got our hardworking taxpayers and families who struggle to make ends meet and pay for their children’s tuition,” Gallivan said. “I think we’ve got to pay attention to those families first before we ever get to providing free tuition for illegal immigrants.”

Gallivan said that looking ahead to the remaining time in session, speaking on behalf of himself and not his conference, he hopes to see more movement on reforms in the corrections system.

The senator, a former sheriff and the chairman of the Committee on Crime Victims, Crime and Correction, said he hopes to address some of the issues highlighted by the prison break from Clinton Correctional Facility last year and the rise in violence in prisons against both prisoners and corrections officers.

There were record numbers for assaults and contraband in state facilities last year.

“The obligation is to provide safe, humane, constitutional confinement,” Gallivan said. “I don’t know how we can do that if assaults continue to rise and contraband continues to get into facilities.”