In election year, Gov. Kathy Hochul's budget plan steers clear of controversy

ALBANY — Gov. Hochul has a briefing book in which she outlines 132 pieces of legislation necessary to enact a state budget this year...

None of them is hugely controversial.

Hochul presented her $260 billion budget proposal to the State Legislature on Tuesday. Unlike recent years, there’s no proposal to change school-aid formulas or criminal trial procedure, no override of local zoning, no delay in climate goals, no state college tuition hike, no new taxes.

Call it a classic "election-year budget" from an incumbent governor: No one’s ox is gored and aid for schools goes up, as always.

"I think the governor, this being an election year, would like to get through the budget process as unscathed as possible, have it be less contentious for her beginning her campaign year," State Sen. Tom O’Mara (R-Big Flats), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, told Newsday.

Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic strategist called it "politically smart" but said it delays tackling thorny issues — such as how to help New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani close a city budget gap — until after the election or 2027.

"This is called a ‘Don’t Make Trouble’ budget," Sheinkopf said.

Hochul, a Democrat in her fifth year in office, faces challenges from presumptive Republican candidate Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive, and Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado, Hochul’s former ally who now is taking her on from the political left flank.

Avoiding budget fights is a way to not give ammunition to the left or right in an election year, Sheinkopf said.

"Don’t tell anyone there is the potential for any negativity whatsoever," he said.

Fewer policy changes

Under Hochul’s budget proposal, overall spending would stay relatively flat, if the State Legislature doesn’t amend it extensively. And aid to New York’s 700-plus school districts would rise an average of 4%.

More noticeably, she hasn’t tried to insert dramatic policy changes, such as changing the state’s school funding formula or overhauling criminal justice, in her budget bills. Governors, including Hochul, often line their fiscal proposals with policy proposals as a way to leverage the Senate and Assembly into supporting their agendas.

But this also typically drags out negotiations and means lawmakers don’t adopt a budget by April 1, the beginning of New York’s fiscal year. Last year, the budget deal was reached in the second week of May as Hochul pushed for criminal procedure changes requested by New York City district attorneys.

No such red flags have popped out this time.

"When you look at it, there’s not that one thing that’s going to hold us up, policy-wise," Assemb. Edward Ra (R-Garden City South) said.

The Assembly, especially Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx), has been critical of governors for loading the budget with policy proposals. He’d prefer to keep an almost strictly fiscal document and said this year’s proposal from Hochul is different.

"There is less policy than normal, so maybe I got in the governor’s ear a bit," Heastie said. "But there still is policy in the budget."

He cited Hochul’s multipronged proposal for cracking down on automobile insurance fraud and staged accidents, as well as one to streamline environmental reviews of building projects, as the ones most likely to trigger debate this year.

Fiscal focus

Activists on immigration and juvenile justice have been the loudest so far in urging Hochul and lawmakers to take on controversial topics this year. But she omitted juvenile justice from her proposal and confined immigration initiatives to widely backed ideas, such as requiring federal agents to have a judge-signed warrant to enter buildings or conduct raids.

Assemb. Michaelle Solages (D-Elmont) said lawmakers want the budget to focus on finances and leave policy for later. The legislative session, after all, runs until early June.

"She’s adhering to the fact that the budget is a fiscal document. So, we’ll have less arguments ahead," she said. "I agree with this methodology of making sure we focus on the important issues surrounding affordability and that government is more transparent and fiscally disciplined."

For her part, Hochul bristled at the idea that the budget proposal doesn’t contain tough or major policies.

"Taking on auto insurance? Not the easiest thing to do," Hochul said at a news conference.

And she also highlighted some of the policy wins she scored previously, such as toughening bail laws and enacting a middle-class tax cut.

She noted that a $10 billion reduction in federal aid from the Trump administration has been offset by rising tax revenue and the surging stock market. She said the state’s principal financial reserves sat at $2 billion when she took office and grew to $20 billion, though that dipped to $14.6 billion after New York paid off a longstanding unemployment insurance debt.

Fiscal hawks warn that future projections, or "out year" budget gaps, loom large. Political observers note Mamdani would like to hike taxes on the wealthy to help address the city’s fiscal woes but isn’t pushing for an answer now.

For the first time in a while, rank-and-file legislators and Hochul even expressed hope the budget could be done by April 1.

Said Solages: "We still have time to tackle [other] discussions. But right now, we’re talking about a fiscal document that we want to see get done by April 1."

By Yancey Roy

yancey.roy@newsday.com@yanceyroy