New York Governor David Paterson kept his promise. Moments after the state Senate and Assembly passed bills completing the state budget, he began vetoing them. His first veto: A bill that would have given schools $400 million more than the Governor would give them.
Gov. Paterson’s plan to fill a massive hole in the state budget consists, in part, of blowing holes in thousands of smaller budgets across the state. His plan to cut education aid, for example, just about doubled the size of the deficit the Fulton City School District is trying to fill.
UPDATE, 11AM: The first numbers are out and they are not good news for local governments and school districts.
The Governor’s budget proposes to cut municipal aid to every village, town and city in Oswego County by 5%. The cut to the city of Fulton would eliminate more than $88,000, while the cut to the city of Oswego would take away more than $133,000.
School aid would also be cut by 5%, though there is no breakout by individual districts to indicate whether the cut is across-the-board or whether some districts will take steeper cuts than others.
Gov. David Paterson delivers the State of the State address Wednesday afternoon.
In it, he will call for sweeping ethics and anti-corruption reforms.
You can watch a live webcast of the address here.
Groups such as the union New York State United Teachers and the New York State School Board Association filed suit this week to try to block the government from withholdings funds scheduled to be sent to every school district in the state. See a full list of aid holdbacks by school district, city and county.
Gov. David Paterson Sunday made good his threat to share the pain of an unbalanced state budget.
He announced he will withhold $750 million in payments to school districts, local governments and social services agencies. Paterson said these were not cuts; the state is going to hold the money longer, to make sure it has cash on hand to pay its bills.
State Senators Wednesday filled most of a big gap in the state budget without hurting this year’s local school district budgets, but took a chunk out of next year’s budget in the process.
The Senate approved a $2.7 billion deficit reduction plan that the Assembly had approved in an overnight session that stretched into Wednesday morning.
Gov. David Paterson raised the stakes in his showdown with the state Legislature on Tuesday. He told legislators that if they were unwilling to make $3.2 billion in mid-year budget cuts, they should give him the authority and he’d do it for them.
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