Senate Republicans today put the blame on Gov. David Paterson and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, for failing to get a budget deal complete.

“1 agree with Governor Paterson’s statement today that the Legislature should be acting on a deficit reduction plan today, instead of waiting until Monday.  The only problem is he has not submitted a bill we can act on, as Senate Republicans called on him to do Thursday,” said Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County.

When asked today why he hasn’t put his budget-cutting plan up for a vote, Paterson said he has. They can vote on it any time they’d like, he said.

Skelos said that Senate Democrats and Republicans have agreed on budget actions that would reduce the budget deficit by $2.6 billion, as opposed to Paterson’s $3.2 billion plan. Democrats hold a 32-30 seat majority.

“The only roadblock to an agreement is Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver who has yet to publicly issue a single proposal to reduce state spending,” Skelos stated.

Skelos has continued to criticize Silver. They’ve sparred at recent leaders’ meetings.

“When Democrats left Albany, Republicans stayed at the Capitol, ready to go into session to pass a plan,” Skelos said. “The governor should stop pounding the table, do his job and stop worrying about his poll numbers so that we can get a final agreement. ”

Here’s Skelos’ full statement:

   After a total of 1,089 state employees received authorization by mid-November to retire with a $20,000 severance payment, Gov. David Paterson’s Division of the Budget is extending the program until Jan. 20 to see if the state can get more participation.

   Paterson ordered a total of $500 million in mid-year budget cuts at state agencies, part of his strategy to close a $3.2 billion budget gap. Agencies can offer the severance packages as a means of helping them make the reductions.

   “It has come to our attention that thousands of employees expressed an interest in participating in the program, but certain agencies chose not to accept these employees into the program,” Budget Director Robert Megna wrote in a letter to commissioners.

   “As you are aware, the State continues to face serious fiscal challenges. To address this situation, the Governor has instructed agencies to aggressively offer severances to reduce the State workforce and maximize savings,” Megna wrote.

   Megna said commissioners should “make every effort to increase the utilization of the Severance Program.” Employees have to file applications under the extension by Dec. 22.

   The Budget Division doesn’t have final numbers of how many employees ultimately took the buyout but expects to know sometime around the beginning of next month, said Matt Anderson, Paterson budget spokesman.
Agency Severance Letter

   Attorney General Andrew Cuomo would get the support of 72 percent of registered voters in the state in a primary against Gov. David Paterson, according to a Marist College poll released today. Twenty-one percent of voters would select Paterson, who plans to run for election next year.

   “Right now, Andrew Cuomo has a clear path to become governor,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College poll. “If he could fast-forward to next November, I’m sure he would.”

   The poll is being released a day after Republican officials confirmed that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is not going to run for governor. The poll found that Cuomo has a lead over former U.S. Rep. Rick Lazio in addition to Paterson. Lazio is the only Republican who has announced he is running for the seat.

   If Lazio ran against Cuomo today, Cuomo would win by a 3-to-1 margin—69 percent to 24 percent, the poll found. If Lazio ran against Paterson, 44 percent of the electorate would support Paterson and 44 percent would choose Lazio. Twelve percent are undecided.

   Cuomo has not announced whether he intends to run and Paterson has said he will stay in the race, despite his paltry poll numbers.

   Marist found that 63 percent of registered voters don’t want Paterson to run for governor and 30 percent want him to be in the race. In a Marist poll two months ago, 63 percent of voters surveyed said they wanted Paterson to drop out and 25 percent wanted him to continue his campaign. Read more of this entry »

With the state facing a cash crunch, Gov. David Paterson warned today he may have to resort to steps that other states have taken—such as layoffs, furloughs or shutting down pre-kindergarten program—if lawmakers don’t make budget cuts this month.

A report from Moody’s Investors Service this week, meanwhile, said the state could lose its stable credit rating “if there is no action taken by the state to close the gap, or if action is taken but is largely one-time in nature (therefore increasing the structural imbalance in the out years).”

Paterson is at odds with lawmakers over cutting aid to schools and health care to help close a $3.2 billion mid-year budget gap. After four days of failed negotiations in Albany, lawmakers went home Thursday and plan to return Monday.

But Paterson continued his tough talk today against legislators who don’t want to make cuts. He said spending reductions now would also help lower the deficit next fiscal year, which he estimated may be at $9 billion. The current fiscal year expires March 31.

Come late December, the state faces running out of money if cuts aren’t made, he and other state officials said. That means the state would have to borrow and possibly delay payments to local governments in schools.

Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli warned today that the state faces a $1.4 billion cash deficit next month. Paterson said that if all the state’s money was pooled together next month and all the bills were paid, the state would have about $30 million in the bank – a remarkably low amount for a state with a $132 billion budget.

“We can’t afford to fall back on the old ways of addressing a long-standing problem with short-term fixes,” DiNapoli said. “It hasn’t worked, and it won’t work. A patch today is a problem tomorrow.”
Without close the budget gap, Paterson said New York would have resort to what other states have done, such as laying off state workers, instituting unpaid weeks off or even eliminating programs, such as early childhood programs and pre-kindergarten classes.

“I’ve been telling you what happened in the other states,” Paterson told reporters this morning. “That’s what we’re going to have to do. I told you that 26 states shut down their early childhood education and pre-kindergarten programs, and that’s what we’re going to have to do.”

Paterson said he spoke to legislative leaders this morning to advise them of the dire predictions. But he said lawmakers have so far offered no cuts to schools and only about $100 million in cuts to health care. Paterson has proposed about $1.3 billion in cuts.

“I think this is a lot more serious than the interest of some of the legislators who would rather go home and be heroes saying look I didn’t cut school aid or look I didn’t cut health care,” Paterson said.Nys Go Report 1109

Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli is coming out with a report today will show that the state’s cash crunch is getting even worse.

DiNapoli said his office will release a report that shows New York faces a cash-flow deficit of up to $1.4 billion in late December, higher than projections from Gov. David Paterson’s budget office.

It means the state is running out of money to pay its bills, DiNapoli warned. Paterson’s office last month predicted a $1.1 billion cash-flow deficit in late December.

“The state does run the risk of running out of cash in a significant way in December,” DiNapoli told Gannett’s Albany bureau. “It really underscores the need for the governor and the Legislature to come together on a deficit-reduction plan.”

DiNapoli urged that spending cuts need to be part of the budget deal, which so far lawmakers have resisted.

Without a budget-cutting plan, state officials said New York may have to delay payments to schools and local governments or borrow to pay its bills, which would hurt the state’s credit rating and its ability to borrow money.

The state has been dipping into a fund controlled by the comptroller called a Short Term Investment Pool, which mainly invests in short-term treasury bills and allows the state to borrow from it to pay monthly bills. But even that fund faces being almost depleted by the end of the year, officials said.

“We’re on a razor’s edge when it comes to cash flow in December in terms of the resources of the Short Term Investment Pool,” said Paterson’s budget spokesman Matt Anderson.

   A new Marist College poll that coincides with news today that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has decided not to run for governor found that he would easily win over Democratic Gov. David Paterson but would have his work cut out for him if Attorney General Andrew Cuomo ran instead of Paterson. 

   Among registered voters, Giuliani would get 60 percent to Paterson’s 35 percent, according to the poll. But Cuomo would get 53 percent and Giuliani would garner 43 percent of the vote in a hypothetical matchup.

   If Giuliani ran for U.S. Senate, which he has not ruled out as a possibility, he would have more of a chance of success. Fifty-four percent of voters said they would vote for Giuliani, a Republican, over freshman Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat. One-third of Democrats surveyed said they would opt for Giuliani.

   Marist found that if a GOP primary for U.S. Senate were held today, 71 percent of voters would choose Giuliani, compared to 24 percent for former Gov. George Pataki, who has also been talked about as a potential candidate.

   Republican Rick Lazio is considering a run for governor, so not having Giuliani in the picture would help Lazio. Lazio, a former U.S. representative, would garner 13 percent of the GOP vote compared to 84 percent for Giuliani, according to Marist.

   “It’s good news for Andrew Cuomo and Rick Lazio but potentially a huge problem for Kirsten Gillibrand,” Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Poll, said in a statement. “If Giuliani were to capture the U.S. Senate seat from heavily Democratic New York State, it would return him to the national spotlight big time.”

   As negotiations to close a $3.2 billion state budget shortfall continue, the Senate and Assembly have left town until Monday. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, has scheduled session Monday afternoon, although members are on alert that they could be called back earlier with 12 hours notice.

   Senate Majority Leader John Sampson, D-Brooklyn, set the next session for 10 a.m. Monday.

   “We fully expect that a three-way agreement will be reached by Monday morning,” said Travis Proulx, a spokesman for Senate Democrats.

   Senate Republicans, who hold 30 of the chamber’s 62 seats, held a news conference this afternoon to present a compromise plan for closing the budget gap by $3.15 billion. 

   “Rather than continuing to try to reach an agreement, the Democrats have gone home,” Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County, said at a news conference.

   Silver blamed the lack of progress on the Senate GOP.

   “The major holdup is Senator Skelos refuses to participate, refuses to provide one Republican vote,” Silver said.

   Skelos said that is not true.

Talk was rampant this afternoon that Rudy Giuliani will not run for governor next year and is considering instead a run for U.S. Senate.

The New York Times reported Giuliani will not run for governor, and the Daily News is reporting he’s going to run for Senate.

There is no official word from Giuliani’s camp, but a spokeswoman said a statement is expected soon. On Sunday, Giuliani wouldn’t say what he would do.

A top Republican official confirmed Giuliani’s decision not to run for governor, saying instead that Giuliani is considering running for U.S. Senate next year against Democratic Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand.

“He is clearly not interested in running for governor, but he is seriously looking at running for the Senate,” the source said.

The news was not surprising to Republican leaders across the state, who long believed that Giuliani was not poised to run for governor.

On Monday night, Giuliani gave a speech to the Molinari Republican Club in Staten Island. Attendees said the speech was geared toward national politics.

“In all honesty, his speech that he gave, which was very good, was more of a national speech, like he was going to run for United States Senate or president again,” said Conservative Party chairman Michael Long.

“It was clear he was not going to run for governor.”

Some county GOP chairmen said they hadn’t heard directly yet that Giuliani wasn’t going to run, but said they are pleased he’s deciding now so the party can focus in on other candidates.

“If this is actually true, I’m delighted it’s now and not a few months in the future,” said Monroe County GOP chairman Bill Reilich.

Rockland County GOP chairman Vincent Reda said the party will have strong candidates on its statewide ticket next year.

Rick “Lazio has already announced, and I’m sure there will be some others looking for the top spot,” Reda said. “I think things look a little brighter for us in the state since this last election period.”

As for Lazio, the only announced GOP candidate, he’s focused on his campaign, a spokesman said.

“we don’t what mayor Giuliani’s plans are,” said spokesman Barney Keller. “We just know that Rick Lazio is running for governor and if elected, he will enact sweeping fundamental changes to state government.”

The war of words continued today over the failure of Gov. David Paterson and the Legislature to reach a deal to close the state’s $3.2 billion mid-year budget gap.

Paterson said he continues to get pushback from state senators, Democrats and Republicans, over his plan to cut aid to schools and health care.

Meanwhile, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, said he’s telling his conference to return to Albany on Monday – signaling that a deal is not near.

“It’s likely we’ll be back next week,” Silver said on WGDJ-AM (1300) in Albany.

Paterson has kept lawmakers in Albany every day this week to get a budget deal in advance of about $6 billion in payments due in December to schools and local governments. Paterson said the state only has about $3 billion to pay the bills.

“Some of the legislators, I must say, do understand this crisis,” Paterson said on WOR-AM (710) in Manhattan. “They tell it to me. They want to get out of here and balance the budget. Others think of excuses.”

The trouble, Paterson suggested, lies in the state Senate, where Democrats hold a narrow 32-30 seat majority. A number of Democratic senators oppose cuts in school spending, while Republicans have not indicated a willingness to go along with Paterson’s budget plan. Paterson has proposed about $1.3 billion in cuts, mainly to schools and health care.

Paterson said some lawmakers want to link cuts to a cap on state spending, which Senate Republicans support but is not backed by Assembly Democrats. Senate Democrats, meanwhile, want no cuts to schools and are proposing inflated revenue projections from the potential collection of taxes on Native American reservations, Paterson charged.

“You wonder how you get a negotiation going on with that kind of element injecting itself in the process, obviously trying to placate other interests,” Paterson said.

The state’s top court today upheld the rights of Westchester County and the state to legally extend benefits to same-sex couples married in other states.

The state Court of Appeals rejected a Christian legal group’s claim that the extension of benefits to gay couples was illegal based on current state law.

But the court stopped short of declaring same-sex marriage in New York legal, saying that such a decision should be left to the state Legislature. The state Senate has yet to pass the measure.

“We end … expressing our hope that the Legislature will address this controversy,” the ruling found.

The Alliance Defense Fund of Scottsdale, Ariz. argued that since same-sex marriage is not legal in New York, state and local governments should not extend equal benefits to gay couples.

The group lost in lower courts, which ruled that extending the benefits does not conflict with current laws.

In June 2006, Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano issued an executive order that the county would recognize out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples. In 2007, the state agreed to allow gay couples married out of state and employed by New York and some local governments to receive health benefits for their families.

The Court of Appeals rejected the challenges by the Alliance Defense Fund, but was split on their
reasons why.

In a written opinion, Judge Carmen Beauchamp Ciparick warned that the patchwork regulations by different state and local government are unwieldy.

“The effect of the majority’s rationale in affirming these orders,” she wrote, “will be to permit an unworkable pattern of conflicting executive and administrative directives promulgated pursuant to the individual discretion of each agency head.”

Marriage Ruling