State leaders agree to school cellphone ban as rest of budget remains in limbo

Gov. Kathy Hochul racked up her first budget win on Thursday after Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie told reporters that her bell-to-bell school cellphone ban was the first piece of policy mostly settled in the spending plan. But the budget is already three days late, and Hochul indicated she’s willing to go even later as she defended her fourth consecutive missed budget deadline.

Much of the budget remains in a state of limbo as lawmakers go home for the weekend after approving a second budget extender, which will last through Monday. But Heastie said that, at the very least, the first of Hochul’s four top policy priorities is settled. “I would say cellphones is just about done,” Heastie told reporters Thursday afternoon, adding that he and state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins had agreed to the governor’s original proposal “with some tweaks.” 

A source familiar with the state of negotiations also confirmed that the governor had reached an agreement with legislative leaders on the cellphone ban, one of her marquee policy items for the year. Hochul spokesperson Sam Spokony did not directly address the idea that the issue was settled, but reiterated her commitment to the proposal. “Governor Hochul has championed bell-to-bell policies to create distraction-free schools across New York, and looks forward to working with the Legislature to finalise a budget that meets the needs of all New Yorkers,” Spokony said in a statement.

Heastie’s comments were the most concrete update to the state of budget negotiations that any of the three top state leaders have offered in the last few weeks, and certainly since missing the April 1 deadline. Talks have largely stalled as Hochul has dug in on her policy priorities. Aside from the phone ban, the governor is seeking to change the discovery laws that govern when prosecutors must share evidence with defense attorneys, to strengthen the state’s involuntary commitment laws and to enact some version of a mask ban.

The discovery debate has sucked much of the oxygen from the negotiating room, and progress on it would greatly propel budget discussions forward. Using the solar system as a metaphor, Heastie said that the Legislature is currently on Neptune – the planet furthest from Earth – in terms of how close a budget deal is. “But I believe if we can resolve discovery… we can be on Mars,” he said.

Hochul was much more tight-lipped when she spoke to reporters on Thursday, the first time she has taken questions from the Albany press corps in nearly two weeks. “I’m not going to tell you,” Hochul said when asked about the status of various budget items, “because that’s not how you negotiate.” The governor has often said that she will not negotiate in public, leaving the status of the budget incredibly opaque until she finally announces a deal.

But the governor said she is “truly not in any rush” to get the spending plan passed, even though it is already several days late. Since taking office in 2021, Hochul has never had an on-time budget, with the budget being passed as late as May in 2023. On Thursday, the governor wouldn’t even give a rough estimate of when officials might finish this year. “I know that some of the legislators may be anxious to hit certain vacation plans, but I'm not going anywhere,” Hochul said. “I don't make vacations, so I'll be here to see this through.”

The fiscal year begins in New York on April 1, giving the governor and lawmakers a statutory deadline to approve a spending plan. But Hochul seems content to treat that deadline more as a suggestion than a requirement, if it means she can get her preferred policy items into the budget. “If I was hung up on the deadline, we would not have the budget that I believe in my heart is the best budget for the people of New York,” she said. Delaying the budget has succeeded in delivering several policy wins in the past few years, including rollbacks to the landmark 2019 reforms to the state’s bail laws and the passage of a major housing package. “April 1 is a great date,” Hochul said. “I'd love to hit it, but I am very successful in overtime.”