{"id":3315,"date":"2026-01-26T08:09:25","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T13:09:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/?p=3315"},"modified":"2026-01-26T08:09:25","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T13:09:25","slug":"governor-hochuls-budget-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/governor-hochuls-budget-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Governor Hochul\u2019s Budget Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last week, Governor Hochul unveiled<\/a> her $260 billion budget plan for the upcoming fiscal year, which starts<\/a> on April 1.\u00a0 The governor\u2019s plan contains measures that she had discussed in her State of the State address<\/a> given a week earlier.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her proposed budget achieved, on paper at least, a difficult political \u201ctriple play\u201d:  She offered a budget that she said was balanced (despite concerns over a projected deficit<\/a> and health care cuts<\/a> from Washington), proposed spending a lot more on childcare<\/a>, and does so without raising personal income tax rates<\/a>.  This delicate budgetary balancing act is possible largely due to a much-larger-than-expected Wall Street<\/a> performance that has swelled the state\u2019s coffers.  According to the governor<\/a>, the state will get more than $3 billion more than expected this year and more than $5 billion additional in the upcoming fiscal year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The governor\u2019s budget covers a lot of ground, but her planned increase in spending more or less keeps up with projected inflation.  The governor described<\/a> it as \u201cnot an austerity budget, but it is a disciplined one.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her budget would extend a business tax that was expected to expire \u2013 which would have dropped the rate from 7.5% to 6.5% \u2013 but her additional revenues relied heavily on the expectation<\/a> that 2026 would be a good year for Wall Street.  Indeed, Wall Street\u2019s performance over the years has exceeded state budgeteers\u2019 forecasts, a point<\/a> made by some fiscal watchdogs that the governor could spend even more to provide necessary services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a strong case to be made that Albany\u2019s cuts to essential programs have hurt the state and that more spending is needed.  Take state assistance to private colleges, for example.  New York policymakers have hammered public support for private colleges found in the Unrestricted Aid to Independent Colleges and Universities program (known as \u201cBundy Aid\u201d).  Bundy Aid<\/a> directs financial support to independent colleges.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once a vital component of independent colleges\u2019 finances, the program has been decimated by cuts over the past four decades.  The peak state support occurred during the 1989-90 fiscal year, when nearly $114 million was appropriated.  During the current fiscal year, that amount has been reduced<\/a> to under $20 million.  If New York had merely kept pace with inflation, the amount of Bundy Aid would be around $260 million \u2013 not less than $20 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result?  Not surprisingly, many colleges \u2013 usually small ones \u2013 have seen their finances become damaged or worse.  According<\/a> to New York education officials, over the last 18 years, New York has lost seventeen independent colleges, universities, and other degree-granting institutions.  Those campuses are, unfortunately, not alone when it comes to financial concerns.  In a recent review<\/a> of colleges conducted by Forbes, nineteen of New York\u2019s 72 colleges and universities (26%) received poor financial grades (C- or D).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does the governor do anything in her budget to reverse that trend?  She does not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to environment, the governor\u2019s plans are also weak.  The governor\u2019s budget does little to reverse the New York\u2019s anemic<\/a> efforts<\/a> to comply with existing state Climate Law<\/a>.  Yet, the governor did herald<\/a> the coming of more nuclear power for the state.  Still left unanswered after decades<\/a> of promises is, where will the nuclear waste go?  Currently, those wastes are being stored, likely forever, at the locations of these power plants<\/a>.  Building more nuclear plants will just make that storage problem worse.  In addition, nuclear power is an incredibly expensive<\/a> way to generate power, which flies in the face of the governor\u2019s \u201caffordability\u201d promises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, despite another state goal \u2013 to recycle<\/a> the amount of garbage generated by 85% by the year 2050 \u2013 the governor proposes nothing significant to achieve that ambitious goal.  This failure comes on the heels of a state-sponsored report<\/a> that found New York\u2019s existing recycling efforts \u201clackluster.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The budget did not ignore environmental needs entirely, but the governor\u2019s plan was essentially to maintain the status quo.  The governor proposed to maintain funding for the Environmental Protection Fund and in one area added spending.  The governor proposed adding<\/a> $250 million to the state\u2019s water infrastructure fund, with the additional monies earmarked for water infrastructure that supports housing development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when it came to the big environmental issues of climate and garbage disposal, little new was offered.  Why did the governor fail to address them in any meaningful way?  Once state lawmakers begin their budget hearings, with one focused on the environment<\/a> this week, perhaps the public will find out more about the governor\u2019s thinking in these critical areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, Governor Hochul unveiled her $260 billion budget plan for the upcoming fiscal year, which starts on April 1.\u00a0 The governor\u2019s plan contains measures that she had discussed in her State of the State address given a week earlier.\u00a0\u00a0 Her proposed budget achieved, on paper at least, a difficult political \u201ctriple play\u201d:  She offered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3315","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3316,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3315\/revisions\/3316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}