Lawmakers prep for virtual budget conference all weekend

Is the end of the budget in sight? It may be, as state legislators prepare to virtually meet throughout the weekend to continue discussing the state spending plan.

Speaking with reporters after a leaders meeting on Thursday, state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said she planned to remain in Albany to keep negotiating the budget with Gov. Kathy Hochul and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie. “I’ll be here,” Stewart-Cousins said, adding that the budget is “close, very close.” 

Members of both the state Senate and Assembly Democratic conferences were sent home after approving an eight budget extender on Thursday, which runs through Tuesday of next week. But they anticipate being on call to virtually discuss updates and hammer out the last details of the spending plan.

Stewart-Cousins confirmed that legislative leaders are “certainly having” conversations about the Housing Access Voucher Program, as first reported by City & State. But she said that the governor had not yet offered a dollar amount for the rental vouchers that she would be willing to fund. She also said that discussions around some version of a mask ban remain ongoing, which the governor had previously suggested may have fallen out of the budget.

Heastie offered fewer details when he spoke to reporters on Thursday, repeatedly saying he first needs to brief his members on the latest. But when asked about finalizing a new funding stream for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s capital plan by means of increasing the payroll mobility tax, he said leaders could “wrap that up in 10 minutes” once they got to it. 

Heastie remained cagey on indicating when the spending plan might get officially finished, but Stewart-Cousins said that she expects that lawmakers will have bills to pass by sometime next week.