As budget negotiations continue in Albany, one of the big sticking points has to do with ethics reform. Zack Fink filed the following report.

Governor Andrew Cuomo was once again uncharacteristically out of his element.

Last week, he traveled to the Assembly chamber to announce a two-way ethics deal with Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie. On Tuesday, he visited the Republicans in the state Senate, but this time, there was no announcement of a deal.

"It was a good conversation," Cuomo said. "I understand their issues. We've been talking about it now for a number of weeks. Obviously, we have an ethics agreement with the Assembly that I think establishes that it can be done. But I also understand the Senate's concerns."

The need for ethics reform was heightened this year after the arrest of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver on corruption charges.

Cuomo proposed a series of ethics reforms, including greater disclosure of outside income for lawmakers. Republicans in the Senate have objections to that.

"If this was just a budget, we'd be done," said state Senator John DeFrancisco of Syracuse. "It's all the ancillary issues that are holding things up, that are the policy issues, and that's why it's very difficult this year."

Cuomo has threatened a late budget without some kind of deal on ethics reform.

"As far as ethics reform? I agree," said state Senator Jeff Klein, leader of the Independent Democratic Conference. "I think ethics reform is probably the most important issue we're going to be dealing with. And I understand if we get it done, everything kind of flows from there."

Another sticking point in budget negotiations has been a number of controversial education reforms proposed by the governor.

Over the weekend, Mayor Bill de Blasio was in Albany, where he criticized Albany for not properly funding schools. 

The Assembly's education committee chair, Cathy Nolan of Queens, was critical of de Blasio for making those comments in the middle of sensitive budget talks. 

"I think the governor has made a good faith effort to respond to the city's concerns about struggling schools," Nolan said. "And if I were the mayor, I'd probably would just say thank you at this point on that piece of it."

Cuomo also announced that he was dropping criminal justice reform from the budget. The governor wants to raise the age of criminal liability to 18 in New York State. Currently, 16- and 17-year olds can be tried as adults.