ALBANY – State Comptroller Carl McCall yesterday bashed Gov. Pataki and legislative leaders for their total paralysis as the state’s new fiscal year kicks off today without a budget in place.
“It seems as if all the parties involved have just thrown their hands up and said they can’t do a budget,” fumed McCall, the state’s chief financial officer.
This is the 15th year in a row that the April 1 legal deadline for adopting a spending plan has been blown.
“‘Embarrassing, ridiculous, dysfunctional, absurd’ – I used all of them last year and the year before and the year before that,” McCall added.
“After 15 years, there are no words left to capture our state’s budget-passing ineptitude. We may be out of words to describe the budget futility, but that doesn’t make it any less embarrassing for our state.”
Pataki, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Rensselaer) held one meeting several weeks ago to discuss the budget, but have not met face-to-face since then.
State lawmakers, who left Albany for the Passover and Easter holidays, aren’t due back for two weeks, and some officials are predicting a new budget could be months off.
“I think I would have a heart attack if we had a budget on time,” said Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio (D-Queens), who was around in 1984, the last time a budget was ready on time.
Among the effects of this year’s delay are that the popular Quick Draw lottery game has expired, and the 211 legislators won’t be collecting their regular paychecks until a spending plan is finally passed.
The chronic lateness doesn’t help New York’s already-poor bond rating, but it does virtually no harm to the operation of New York City or its schools.
Pataki and Bruno have blamed the Democrat-controlled Assembly for the impasse, charging that the Assembly’s spending proposals are way too high. Pataki, who wants to hold new spending to the rate of inflation, has said the Assembly Democrats are pushing for $3 billion in extra spending.
But a spokeswoman for Silver insisted Pataki is exaggerating the gap, and she said, “We’ve never been closer.”
Temporary emergency spending bills keep state government functioning without a regular budget in place.