After announcing a conceptual agreement on the state budget earlier this week, Gov. Kathy Hochul said Wednesday that only minor details need to be negotiated.
Some lawmakers said they were caught off guard by the announcement of a deal. However, in an interview with NY1 political anchor Errol Louis on “Inside City Hall,” Hochul said she has done this type of agreement with her last two budgets.
“When you look at what we end up announcing as our final budget, you’ll see it’s the same as what I said on Monday,” the governor said. “Again, there’s fine tuning to be done. So it was not a 100% done budget when I announced it, but our staff continues to work through the days and nights. Are we on the one-yard line? I think we’re pretty close.”
Hochul called the scope of the budget “a big deal.” She mentioned that there was an effort to tackle the status quo and some tough issues in the budget, like the affordability crisis and housing shortage.
There are still some open issues in the budget, including whether to extend mayoral control of city schools as part of the process.
When asked why including mayoral control in the budget was important, Hochul emphasized that this is the time of the year where she has the most leverage.
“This is a chance for the governor to have a place to get my priorities through,” she said.
“I think this city, and the children that we serve, needs to have stability. Mayoral control has not been done necessarily in the budget before, but I wanted to stop the whole politicization of this,” she added about mayoral control of schools. “It’s not about the personalities or the leader. It’s about what’s the best system.”
Hochul said that housing took about 95% of the state’s efforts in the budget process.
When asked by Errol Louis about nearly all the parties involved in the housing plan expressing some unhappiness, Hochul said that “New Yorkers who finally have a home” will be happy.
“This was the vehicle to help our tenants against price gouging,” she said.
The governor added that she was focused on getting more tenants into the system.
“If I can get more people in the system, prices will come down. If we start building the basic supply and demand, build more housing, more supply, prices come down,” she said.
Also included in the conceptual budget deal include new spending and laws to crack down on retail theft, including an increase in penalties for assaulting retail employees.
Despite an apparent cyberattack that officials said targeted the state Legislature’s computer software that prints legislation, Hochul said the expectation is that the Legislature will vote “as they scheduled, probably Thursday and Friday.”