This week lawmakers return to the Capitol to begin the second half, the non-budgetary, part of the 2015 legislative session.\u00a0 The second half of session likely will be dominated by a handful of issues, including some that dropped off the table during budget negotiations.<\/p>\n
The New York City rent control law expires this June.\u00a0 Advocates argue that maintaining the rent control law helps ensure that housing continues to be affordable in what is becoming one of the most expensive cities in the world.\u00a0 The issue will be a top priority of tenants\u2019 rights groups who will be opposed by New York City\u2019s real estate industry, which has poured millions of dollars into Governor Cuomo\u2019s and state lawmakers\u2019 reelection bids.<\/p>\n
Another top issue, again focused on New York City, will be extension of mayoral control of the city\u2019s school system. \u00a0Until recently, the city\u2019s schools were controlled by a more decentralized system that included local school boards and a city Department of Education.\u00a0 In 2002, legislation passed that granted the mayor direct control over the schools.<\/p>\n
In addition, there will be a debate over extending the state\u2019s property tax cap.\u00a0 Those big issues, plus some of the issues that got kicked out of the budget, like the education tax credit, the DREAM Act, increasing the minimum wage, and the women\u2019s agenda legislation will drive the end of session.<\/p>\n
Of course, there is always the possibility that the end of session could be overshadowed by ethics controversies \u2013 as was the budget process.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Attorney had publicly stated that the public should “stay tuned” after his arrest and indictment of former Assembly Speaker Silver.\u00a0 This past week, it was widely reported that one lawmaker under scrutiny is current Senate Majority Leader Skelos.\u00a0 Whether anything will come of that is, of course, impossible to know right now.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s safe to assume that when the U.S. Attorney says to “stay tuned” \u2013 implying that there are more ethics actions to come \u2013 we should.<\/p>\n
Of course, lawmakers will take up hundreds of other issues.<\/p>\n
One issue that is expected to get some legislative air time is the plan to extend the state\u2019s so-called “SUNY2020” plan.\u00a0 Despite the fact that the law doesn\u2019t expire until next year, advocates are making a big push for lawmakers to this year decide to extend the program.<\/p>\n
The SUNY2020 program has as its central component annual tuition hikes at SUNY, as much as $300 per year.\u00a0 And tuition has gone up $300 every one of the years that the law has been on the books in 2011, a whopping 24% increase with at least one more year to go.<\/p>\n
As part of the deal to hike tuition, the state agreed to a “maintenance of effort” promise.\u00a0 Essentially, the state promised not to cut its support for SUNY, and that the new revenues generated by the tuition hikes would go toward enhancing college programs, not filling in budget cuts.<\/p>\n
But that promise turned out to be a weak one.\u00a0 For example, the maintenance of effort pledge did not<\/em> include salary increases for SUNY, which means that $130 million for those increases had to come from somewhere, likely students\u2019 tuition.\u00a0 And the impact has been real: in 2008, before 2020 went into effect, students covered 50 percent of SUNY\u2019s budget; they now cover 70 percent \u2013 thanks to the tuition hikes and the stagnant state support.<\/p>\n In 2010, the state\u2019s overall budget totaled roughly $130 billion.\u00a0 The current state budget has grown to $142 billion.\u00a0 The state\u2019s financial picture has improved.\u00a0 Both the state\u2019s and the nation\u2019s economies are humming.<\/p>\n Why continue to shift the burden of SUNY\u2019s costs to college students and their families?<\/p>\n As I mentioned earlier, the second half of the session is supposed to be one that grapples with non-budget issues, but extension of the SUNY 2020 plan obviously would be a rare departure.<\/p>\n That\u2019s one sleeper issue for the remainder of the 2015 session.\u00a0 Whether the “college tax”, aka tuition, continues to jump could be determined by June.\u00a0 Hopefully, lawmakers will decide to give students a break by freezing SUNY\u2019s tuition, instead of jacking it up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week lawmakers return to the Capitol to begin the second half, the non-budgetary, part of the 2015 legislative session.\u00a0 The second half of session likely will be dominated by a handful of issues, including some that dropped off the table during budget negotiations. The New York City rent control law expires this June.\u00a0 Advocates […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1371"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1435,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371\/revisions\/1435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}