Progress on budget
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- March
- 26
 Both Senate and Assembly sources said this morning that there has been “progress’’ in private talks between the houses on reaching a deal on how much money the state has to spend next year, and that a public meeting of the legislative leaders and Gov. David Paterson could take place later today.
That would be the first step towards getting a new state budget, expected to top $124 billion, adopted. The spending plan is supposed to be adopted by the end of the month, but that deadline is looking less likely to be met every day.
According to the calendar the houses drew up earlier this year, conference committees that are supposed to work out differences in spending priorities between the two houses were to issue a final report today. But they have yet to meet.
The main sticking point between the two houses has been the Assembly’s plan to raise taxes on millionaires by $1.5 billion, which the Senate opposes. The Senate instead wants to use reserve funds and more optimistic assumptions about spending and tax revenues for next year to help fund state programs. The Assembly thinks the Senate’s plan is unrealistic and will just make the state;s financial problems worse next year.
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 10:22 am by Jay Gallagher.
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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. 
