Chief Judge Judith Kaye, who has been pushing a pay hike for judges for years, pointed out that it was nine years ago today that New York jurists were last voted a raise by the Legislature.
 “This is the longest period that any judges in the United States have gone without any increase whatever in their compensation,’’ she said at a Manhattan press conference. “Just imagine, in today’s economy earning precisely what you did 10 years ago in a demanding, full-time job.’’
     The pay hike has to be approved by the Legislature, whose members also haven’t had a raise in the last nine years. It has been blocked there by the Assembly, which wants to link the judges’ raises to one for themselves. Supreme Court judges make $136,700 a year. Lawmakers make a base pay of $79,500. Stipends drive up the average to over $90,000. Lawmakers have shied away from raising their own pay, fearing a political backlash.
      “For us this has been an incomparably frustrating, angering year – indeed, couple of years,’’ Kaye said. “We have been continually promised this will be done – in the coming weeks, the coming months, in the coming year.’’ But it hasn’t been yet.
 And no action is on the immediate horizon. Lawmakers have no plans to return to the Capitol before the end of the year.
A defiant state Thruway Authority on Wednesday moved forward with plans to raise tolls on the Thruway, despite calls from state legislators to hold off until a state audit is completed.
The Thruway Authority wants to raise tolls 5 percent in both 2009 and 2010 and also cut in half the discounts for the roughly 1 million E-Z Pass customers starting in July.
The authority’s board didn’t give final approval to the toll increases Wednesday, but agreed to move forward with the process – which will include an environmental review and public hearings around the state over the next few months. A final vote on the toll increases is expected in mid-April.
The potential toll increases are on top of a 10 percent increase for cash customers starting on Jan. 6. That increase was approved in 2005.
The seven-member authority has been under increasing pressure from state lawmakers to back off the toll increases until the state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli finishes an audit of the authority’s operations, expected some time next month.
Yet board members said during its monthly meeting that it has to push ahead with its plan in order to ensure roads are safe and the authority’s budget is balanced.
“Our first and foremost responsibility is to the safety of the public,” said board member Nancy Carey Cassidy. “We also have a fiduciary responsibility.”
Earlier Wednesday, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Assemblyman David Gantt, D-Rochester, urged the board to hold off until the audit is completed.
The Democratic assemblyman warned that board members will be called to testify at an Assembly hearing if they continue to move forward with the toll increases.
“The Thruway Authority Board of Directors owes to the people of New York a detailed explanation of why tolls would be increased without first demanding cost-cutting measures and other economies from Authority management,” Gantt said.
“If calling board members to testify at a hearing is the only way to get that explanation, then that is what we will do.”
Authority officials said the public process will allow for negotiations on whether the state should take control of the state’s canal system, which is now run by the Thruway Authority at an annual loss of about $80 million.
If the canal system was taken off the Thruway’s books, the toll increases may be unnecessary, authority officials said.
The budget hole the state has to climb out of just got a little deeper. State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli reported today that higher than expected spending and lower than expected tax revenues – always a bad combination – has left the state with $469 million less than the budget anticipated.
 Unless those trends turn around, it means that the projected $4.3 billion deficit for next year could be even more.
The state Budget Division said the shortfall was caused mostly by timing issues of when revenues were recorded and expenses incurred. But there’s no argument that Wall Street has made predicting revenues for the rest of this year and next more dicey than usual.
  Gov. Eliot Spitzer has to come up with answers on how to close the budget gap by the time he presents his plan to the Legislature on Jan. 23.
 Say this for Sen. Chuck Schumer – he doesn’t stand still very often.
  The state’s peripatetic senior senator announced today that he planned to visit Rensselaer County, near the state Capitol, tomorrow. That will be the 62nd county he has visited this year – the ninth year in a row (every year he’s been in office) that he’s at last set foot in every county.
 He never draws the comparisons with his predecessors, but former Sens. Alfonse D’Amato (who served three terms before Schumer defeated him in 1998) and the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan (who retired in 2000 to make way for Hillary Clinton) were never known to be driving around snow-slicked highways upstate in the winter.
  Clinton also has a reputation for showing up in small towns all over the state, although most of the hamlets, diners and fire halls she has visited recently have been in Iowa and New Hampshire rather than New York.Â
  By Schumer’s count, he has visited Long Island 35 times this year, Monroe County (as well as Erie and the Capital District 15, Westchester-Rockland and Onondaga 14 times each.
   To help revive the upstate economy, the state should eliminate corporate taxes in the region, as well as provide tax breaks for workers under 25 and businesses with 50 or fewer employees, an economic-development official told state budget officials today.
 “The key to revitalizing the upstate economyis to continue reducing the high taxes and the high costs of doing business,’’ Sandy Parker, head of the Rochester Business Alliance, said at a budget hearing. The alliance is part of “Unshackle Upstate,’’ a group of upstate economic-development officials pushing for more state help in reviving the region.The Unshackle plan would cost almost $1.4 billion when fully phased in. It would eliminate the 7.1 percent tax the state levies on businesses outside the New York City metro area over five years. That would cost the state treasury about $1 billion.  The Unshackle plan also calls for increasing the standard state-income-tax deduction for workers aged 18-25 from the current $7,500 to $10,000, at a cost of $270 million. The third idea is to give a $700 property-tax rebate to small upstate businesses, at a cost of $115 million.
  Parker said she knows the cuts look expensive – the state is already facing a potential budget deficit of $4.3 billion next year – but she said they could help “unshackle the upstate tiger,’’ just as tax cuts have changed a formerly economically depressed Ireland into the “Celtic Tiger’’ that now has one of the fastest rates of economic growth of any country in Europe.
 There was no immediate response from the state Budget Division. Gov. Eliot Spitzer is to present his budget plan to the Legislature on Jan. 23.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer appeared at his first press conference at the Capitol today since July, and ended up leaving the room with reporters shouting questions at him.
 The topic, of course, was Troopergate, the botched attempt to damage Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno that has dogged the governor since it was unveiled this summer. One of his former aides, Darren Dopp, is being investigated for potential perjury in the case. Spitzer is slated to talk about the matter at some point before the state Commission on Public Integrity, but it’s not clear when.
 Today, appearing with college presidents and other higher-education officials to announce a proposal to improve the state university, Spitzer was asked whether his office had been served with a subpoena from Albany County District Attorney David Soares.
 “Yes,’’ he said.
 Then in response to questions about what the DA was seeking, Spitzer said, “I’ve answered these questions over and over. I will not hesitate to answer them.’’
  But he didn’t answer what was in the subpoena, whether he would disclose what was in the subpoena, and whether he would release it. He did say as a prosecutor he didn’t disclose what was in subpoenas.
 Then after answering a few questions about the status of negotiations on who will run the state’s horse-racing industry after Jan. 1 (nowhere apparently) he said he had to go, leaving the higher-ed people to answer questions about the report.
In response to a New York Post story that state Republicans are cooling to Rudy Giuliani’s bid for presidency, the state GOP just put out a news release on how much they still support him.
New York Republicans have been hoping that a strong Giuliani campaign would help them in races down the ballot next year for the state Senate. Yet despite some slipping in the polls, Giuliani remains the state party’s choice, it said.
“New York Republicans are strongly united behind Rudy Giuliani, because we New Yorkers have seen firsthand what Rudy can do.
From revitalizing New York City’s economy and cutting crime to providing strength and vision to a battered nation after September 11th, Rudy Giuliani has been tested; and he has proven that he can deliver.
Additionally, Mayor Giuliani is the only Republican who has the ability to compete in all fifty states, including here in New York, and he will help Republican candidates at all levels win across the state.
We will continue our efforts to help Rudy win New York and the White House, because we know he is the best candidate to be President. With Rudy leading the way, the future will be bright for Republicans, New Yorkers and the entire nation.
New York Republicans stand behind Rudy one hundred percent. He’s right for our party, right for our state, and most importantly, he’s right for the United States of America.”
A state oversight board voted today to let the New York Racing Association continue to run three of the state’s thoroughbred tracks until a new deal is struck on who will operate tracks at Belmont, Aqueduct and Saratoga.
The unanimous vote by the Racing Association Oversight Board, however, still leaves the future of racing in doubt. The agreement requires NYRA to sign off on a temporary extension, and the beleaguered agency did not indicate today whether it will go along with the resolution.
Here’s the resolution: Reso%2007-08%20NYRA%20End%20of%20Franchise.doc
The future of racing has become the main topic of debate in Albany in the final weeks of the year as NYRA’s contract to run the tracks expires at year’s end.
The oversight board, according to state law, would take control of the tracks on Jan. 1, but first wants to enter into a temporary extension with NYRA. The state Legislature and Gov. Spitzer have yet to reach an agreement on a permanent solution.
Carol Stone, who heads the oversight panel, said that NYRA does not agree with the temporary extension, she would have the authority to enter into a contract with another operator to continue the tracks’ operation.
NYRA said it is reviewing the latest proposal.
“NYRA remains confident that an agreed memorandum of understanding and legislation will be achieved. NYRA will continue to work cooperatively toward that end,” a statement read.
“NYRA’s attorneys are reviewing the resolution adopted today by the Non-Profit Racing Oversight Board to determine an appropriate course of action.”
Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0.
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
