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Andrew Cuomo
The NY Works Program Takes Shape
Apr 3rd - 2:43 pm
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s shop press blasted out a series of press releases today trumpeting the New York Works program was already taking shape with projects planned in central New York and the North Country regions.
“For the second straight year, New York State has worked and passed a balanced and transformative budget based on fiscal responsibility, job creation, government efficiency,” Cuomo said in a news release. “The cornerstone of this budget is the New York Works program, a new and smarter strategy for putting New Yorkers back to work by rebuilding our aging infrastructure and helping put our state’s economy back on track, just the way we have put our state government back on track. This significant investment will rebuild the foundation of the region’s economy and create thousands of jobs for New Yorkers.”
Central New York is in line to receive $29.7 million and the North Country will receive $45.5 million. The state’s Southern Tier will receive more than $107 million. The money is slated to repair roads, bridges and other areas of the state’s troubled infrastructure.
The program is one of the centerpieces of what Cuomo proposed for the recently approved $132.6 billion budget.
The New York Works program, which was also heavily promoted by the Cuomo-aligned Committee to Save New York, is also being cast as a job-creating program.
And it’s not just roads and bridges. Last night, I took a look at how the state’s parks system will benefit from the program.
The proposal includes $89 million for needed infrastructure repairs and upgrades for the 213 state parks facilities.
“They have not had the money to do the kind of quality maintenance projects that they wanted to do. So they’ll really have to address it. It means they’ll have to dig into a lot of big projects,” said Erik Kulleseid, Alliance for New York State Parks Director.
As Crain’s New York pointed out, the program is not quite an infrastructure “bank” per se and assumes there will be $3.5 billion in private investment. Marhsaling agency resources also has the added benefit of consolidating Cuomo’s power of the purse over the projects.
Klein Says Cuomo Improves The Democratic Brand
Apr 3rd - 7:53 am
There are some Senate Democrats who get along with Gov. Andrew Cuomo in Albany: the Independent Democratic Conference.
Sen. Jeff Klein, D-Bronx, is backing an increase to the minimum wage and issued a report this week that found the Speaker Sheldon Silver-backed measure would spur job growth and stimulate the state’s economy.
The position puts Klein at odds with the 32-member Republican conference, whose leadership has said raising the minimum wage to $8.50 and then tying it to the rate of inflation is a job-killer.
Cuomo has also not taken a position on the minimum wage measure as proposed by the Democratic-led Assembly, though he’s backed wage increases in the past.
But the report raises some eyebrows, considering that the IDC has voted with Senate Republicans on several key pieces of legislation that required Democratic votes.
It’s also a little interesting, given one of the Albany parlor games has been trying to read where the IDC will land should control of the Senate be up for grabs post-Election Day, with Klein and his breakaway conference becoming potential kingmakers.
Klein, interviewed by Liz on the show last night, said their position has been one of backing up Cuomo, who he said has been “improving the Democratic brand” in New York.
“We’re always Democrats, we always will be Democrats,” Klein said. “I think the important thing to remember is we’re smart enough and we understand governing is that important to follow the lead of our governor.”
He added: “He’s improving the Democratic brand. He’s governing and the IDC is supporting the governor and his agenda while the Senate Democratic conference is running away from Governor Cuomo and his agenda.”
It’s a little more complicated than that, though. The IDC voted against the Tier Six pension plan, a centerpiece of Cuomo’s second-year agenda that is taking effect this month.
Sen. Diane Savino of Staten Island has also been a vocal supporter of the public worker unions while Cuomo has sought further and further concessions from labor.
And on other policy issues, Cuomo has sounded supportive notes on passing some form of the state version of the DREAM Act for the children of undocumented immigrants, a major goal of Senate Democrats.
But Cuomo’s relationship with the remaining Democratic conference in the Senate seems strained at this point, with some lawmakers refusing to attend a budget victory lap at the mansion last week.
Update: Senate Democrats released an advisory this morning saying they plan to hold a hearing on April 18 in Albany to discuss the minimum-wage increase.
‘It’s An Age Without Heroes’
Apr 2nd - 7:56 am
ICYMI: Assemblyman Jack McEneny sat down with me on CapTon last Friday to explain why he has decided not to seek re-election this fall after 20 years of serving at the Capitol and some 40 in public service.
McEneny talked about how much things have changed and the difficulty of leading in what he called “an age without heroes.”
“You don’t find it in sports – you’ve got the steroids scandals and the extraordinary paychecks,” the Albany Democrat said.
“You don’t find it in business with Enron and Wall Street. You don’t find it in the clergy anymore, and you certainly don’t find it in politics.”
“It’s an age without heroes, and it’s difficult to be in a leadership position in that type of thing, and when people do mess up, there’s a media guilt by association – whether warranted or not.”
But what about Gov. Andrew Cuomo, I asked, noting his unusually high approval ratings and the fact that he has managed to maintain his popularity through two budget cycles now – far longer than anyone expected.
“The polls change,” replied McEneny, who hasn’t been shy about disagreeing with Cuomo on several issues, including the ongoing executive vs. Legislature power struggle and redistricting.
“I remember George Bush Sr. went from like 75 percent in April to lose in November,” the assemblyman continued. “But I think with Andrew Cuomo, even the people who have disagreements with him on one thing or another…they feel good about Andrew Cuomo.”
“They feel good particularly in the light of his immediate predecessors…I think they feel the ship of state actually has a real captain who’s going somewhere.”
McEneny also told me he’s unlikely to endorse a successor, joking that if the line of would-be replacements gets any longer someone might need to apply for a “parade permit” to get them all into one room.
He did say, however, that he would come out in opposition against anyone who intends to make the job of representing the Capitol City a part-time gig, or doesn’t support the Albany Convention Center – a project he believes in (he also serves on the authority commission).
Cuomo Q And A: Kudos All Around
Mar 30th - 2:06 pm
Gov. Andrew Cuomo took a final victory lap on the $132.6 billion budget this afternoon alongside Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos.
He also posed for a handful of photo ops with lawmakers and Lt. Gov. Bob Duffy. The news conference, somewhat hastily assembled, came before the Legislature formally adopted all the budget bills, but was needed early so that Silver could head home before sundown to observe the Jewish sabbath.
The news conference also came after the governor held a cabinet meeting on Tuesday to discuss the budget, but Skelos and Silver were not present.
Today is all very anti-climatic in many respects, especially compared to previous budget cycles that dragged on past the start of the 2012-13 fiscal year, April 1.
During the question and answer portion, Cuomo wouldn’t commit to a 2 percent limit on spending increases in next year’s budget.
“Obviously we would like to, but I don’t want to commit to a future budget. Let’s get this one passed,” he said.
State spending is increasing by 1.9 percent in this year’s budget, but spending overall in the budget is down by about $135 million. Cuomo earlier this week said that codifying the 2 percent spending limit wouldn’t pass the Legislature, though the Republican-led Senate has pushed for it in its last several one-house budget bills.
Senate Republicans seemed to outnumber Democrats at the news conference held in the Red Room and the Democratic governor has worked exceeding well with the 32-member conference. Republicans are fighting to keep control of the Senate and Cuomo has been in part able to hold sensitive policy issues like redistricting over them to achieve his legislative goals.
But Cuomo as usual side-stepped questions on whether he would like to see Skelos stay majority leader next year.
“We’ll get to politics later on in the year. One of the things that has worked for us is we’ve kept the politics on the side and we’ve done government work. We still have a legislative session as the majority leader spoke about,” he said. “Thanks for the question, though.”
The Senate is divided 32-29 with the vacancy currently under a special-election recount. A 63rd seat is being added barring a lawsuit brought on by Senate Democrats.
One of the questions among Albany’s chattering classes is whether Cuomo wants a GOP-led Senate at all during his time in office.
The governor also defended the education spending in the budget, which will increase by $805 million, thanks to the tax code overhaul from December.
“Would we have liked to have raised it more? Of course. But is 4 percent a very significant raise considering where we are. I think it is,” Cuomo said.
Senate GOP’s Supreme Court, Anti-Obamacare Connection
Mar 29th - 2:56 pm
Here’s an interesting piece of trivia pointed out to me by a reader: Attorney Michael Carvin, who argued for the challengers during this week’s marathon oral arguments on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act before the U.S. Supreme Court has a connection to the Senate Republicans.
Carvin has been the Senate majority’s redistricting lawyer since 1992. He’s also the mastermind behind the GOP’s proposal to create a 63rd Senate seat, which is the subject of a legal challenger by the Senate Democrats, who insist that was nothing more than a politically-motivated move to improve the Republicans’ chances of retaining the majority this fall.
This week, Carvin represented the NFIB, which has joined with 26 states to challenge the federal health care reform act.
Interestingly, the Senate GOP has balked at creating a health care exchange here in New York, which is required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (unless states want the federal government to step in and create one for them).
The Republicans initially cited “Obamacare” in the wake of the same-sex marriage bill passage as the reason why they wouldn’t follow the Assembly’s lead last summer and pass the health care exhange bill, even though one of their veteran members, Senate Health Committee Chairman Kemp Hannon, had been involved in drafting the measure and supported it.
This year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo tried to put a health care exchange in the budget, but the Senate GOP refused to go along with that. So, now Cuomo is planning to go it alone, establishing an exchange via executive order. The Republicans have said they will not challenge that move, which is expected to take place some time this week.
Carvin is a patner at Jones Day, a former DOJ official and was one of the lead attorneys who argued before the Florida Supreme Court in 2000 on behalf of George W. Bush in the Florida/hanging chad recount controversy. (As we know, the court eventually found in his Bush’s favor, and against former Democratic VP Al Gore).
In addition, as Jimmy Vielkind noted not long ago, Carvin is the brother of Rye Town Supervisor Joe Carvin, who briefly ran for the US Senate before changing his mind and focusing on a challenge to Democratic Rep. Nita Lowey instead.
CSEA’s ‘Dark Deal’ Ad Complains About ‘Perk’ It Opposed
Mar 29th - 1:50 pm
The Civil Service Employees Association’s “Dark Deal” commercial blasts a 401k-style “perk” for high paid non-union workers — an option the labor organization vehemently opposed during the Tier Six debate.
“The average pension for a CSEA-represented employee is about $14,000 annually after decades of service, but this boondoggle means the politically favored will minimally receive $6,000 annually every year, after one year of service,” union President Danny Donohue said. “That is totally unacceptable and we can only hope that the public will be as outraged at Governor Cuomo and the State Senators and Assembly members as we are.”
The ad, which has been running in the Albany area over the last several days, claims the new, less generous retirement level for future public employees gives an 8 percent annual increase in salary to non-union workers who make $75,000 and more.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo had proposed an optional defined contribution plan in the Tier Six proposal, but it was altered to only narrowly included non-unionized workers after unions like CSEA and the Public Employees Federation decried the provision.
The change was presumably done to satisfy unions and lawmakers who were squeamish about the proposal, which would have been the same model offered to some state university employees.
“It’s a really big cash bonus they didn’t earn,” the ad says with the customary Scary Music and Frightening Voice Over.
The ad urges voters to call Cuomo and lawmkaers to “fix this political boondoggle now.”
Astorino Gives Cuomo ‘High Marks’ But Calls Tax Cap A ‘Scam’ Without Savings
Mar 29th - 11:30 am
Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino praised Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s first 15 months in office for turning around the culture of the state Capitol, but he criticized a signature component of the governor’s first year: the 2 percent cap on local property taxes.
Interviewed on Fred Dicker’s Talk-1300 show this morning, Astorino indicated the pace of mandate relief efforts has to speed up.
“The property tax cap is a scam right now without cuts in expenses from Albany,” Astorino said. “It’s slowed, but our pensions costs will exceed the tax cap unless there’s some changes. That’s where it’s a scam right now.”
Astorino, considered one of the few New York Republicans with statewide potential, lobbied state lawmakers to back Cuomo’s Tier Six pension overhaul, which passed earlier this month. But Astorino said the new, less generous retirement system didn’t go far enough.
“Tier Six is not this historical thing,” Astorino said. “It’s good, but it’s not radical.”
He compared local governments to cancer patients who need treatment now.
“And now the state tells us good news, we’re going to start chemo in two years,” Astorino said.
Tier Six saves $80 billion over 30 years and only impacts future public workers.
The state is assuming a partial phased-in take over of local Medicaid costs and Cuomo is touting the revamped mandate relief council which is now led by Lt. Gov. Bob Duffy.
Astorino, named as a possible challenger to Cuomo in 2014, said he was only looking forward to his next election in 2013 as county executive. By most accounts publicly, Astorino and Cuomo have a decent personal relationship. Cuomo lives in Westchester County and through his fiscal policies has tried to make in roads among suburban voters.
“I think the governor has certainly put some controls on expenses,” Astorino said. “I think he’s tried hard, I think he’s had some victories. I think he’s changing the culture up here a little bit.”
The Truth According To Denny Farrell
Mar 29th - 7:34 am
ICYMI: Assembly Ways and Means Chairman Denny Farrell took a break from debating budget bills with GOP lawmakers yesterday to sit down with me in his Capitol office to provide a behind-the-scenes view of how this deal got done.
Farrell, who was elected in 1974, was unusually candid (although he’s making that something of a habit these days), revealing, for example, that he believes Gov. Andrew Cuomo knew all along he would eventually give in on the so-called millionaire’s tax – despite his repeated claims to the contrary.
Farrell, who has longstanding ties to the Cuomo family forged during Mario Cuomo’s first run for governor, recalled when Andrew Cuomo floated the idea last November of a complete tax code overhaul during a closed-door meeting of the black and Latino legislative caucus.
“The governor said…’there should be a progressive system. Look at the people at the bottom that are not getting a break.’ He talked about it. When I heard that I knew right away that he was thinking on it.”
“So, he knew all along where it was. If he ‘d have said anything like that in his first year, everybody would have said: ‘He’s just another taxing Democrat.’”
Farrell also challenged Cuomo’s desire to kill member items for good, noting the governor has plenty of economic development cash to dole out on his own – or, as the assemblyman put it: “The governor has people who walk around with money in their pockets.”
“And their job is to go place to place to do what they can to bring jobs in,” Farrell continued. “And they want to have the money right away, so we give them that loose money so they can help people do certain things.”
“That’s what member items is also…I don’t get very many federal things, state things in my district…there are programs within my district that would like to get some help from the state, and this is the way we can do it.”
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a close Farrell ally, tried and failed to get member items back into this year’s budget. Farrell suggested that despite the governor’s tough talk, this issue might not yet be dead.
He floated the idea of going back to line-item grants in the budget that are directed by individual legislators, rather than a lump sum of cash allocated to the rank-and-file by the legislative leaders.
Republicans Won’t Fight Cuomo Executive Order
Mar 28th - 3:37 pm
Senate Republicans aren’t complaining about Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s creation of an health insurance exchange through an executive order, part of the federal mandate stipulated in the health care law that could ultimately be tossed out by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“That’s his right to do,” Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos told reporters after today’s Senate session ended. “We won’t challenge that.”
Senate Insurance Committee Chairman James Seward went further, saying Cuomo’s decision is “appropriate.”
It is possible that the Legislature may take up additions to the exchange once the dust settles on the Supreme Court case, which was in its second day of arguments over the constitutionality of the 2010 federal health care overhaul, a key piece of President Obama’s first term legislative victories.
It’s also a possibility the justices will only repeal certain components of the law, such as the stipulation that individuals purchase their own insurance in order to keep overhaul policy costs down.
“The governor’s going forward with this executive order, we’ll have to see what’s in it, but certainly I think it’s appropriate for him to take this move at this time and at least some of the preliminary work can continue with his executive order and at some point we’ll have a clearer picture as a Legislature,” Seward said in an interview.
The Republican-controlled Senate was poised to approve the statewide exchange in June, but balked after some members complained they were instituting “ObamaCare” — the pejorative used mainly by conservatives to described the law.
The debate came as lawmakers were also negotiating the details of the same-sex marriage bill, which ultimately passed. Senate Republicans this year signaled the exchange was too expensive and the issue needed to be studied. Seward introduced a bill that would have looked at cost impact.
State Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long issued a similar problem with the exchange in a statement.
“Governor Cuomo, the rush to put Health Exchanges in place by Executive Order is bad for the health of New York State and I strongly urge you to rethink this inexcusable rush to assume the responsibility of the Legislature. Health Exchanges are a costly, burdensome, big government proposal that ultimately harms the health of New Yorkers,” he said.
Cuomo said on Tuesday he would create the exchange through an executive order by the end of this week. Past governors have used the power of executive order to enact federal mandates.
In other news, Skelos said in the reporter gaggle that he felt lawmakers were underpaid, but given the “circumstances” a salary increase from the base $79,500 was not possible.
“No discussion about pay raises,” Skelos said. “I don’t believe there will be any discussions about pay raises. It’s not on the agenda.”
But are they paid enough?
“Do I feel legislators are adequately paid? No. When you don’t have a pay raise for 14 years — but the circumstances now are you just can’t do it,” he said.
Cuomo Heaps Praise On Legislature Despite ‘Extremists’
Mar 28th - 11:38 am
A day after a deal on a tentative $132.6 billion budget was announced, Gov. Andrew Cuomo took to the radio this morning in back-to-back interviews with Fred Dicker on Talk-1300 and Susan Arbetter on The Capitol Pressroom to praise the agreement and lawmakers.
The Democratic governor said the leadership structures of both chambers function well, despite “extremists” in both parties who can hold up the budget making process in Albany.
The state spending plan, due Saturday, is expected to be passed by Friday and increases overall state spending by 1.9 percent. The 2012-13 fiscal year begins Sunday.
While Cuomo has been effusive in his praise for lawmakers, he continues to shoot down questions on whether they deserve their first pay raise in 13 years.
Still, he has never completely ruled out granting a pay raise to lawmakers sometime later this year. If any raise is voted on, it would almost certainly be after the November elections.
“We have no discussions about a pay raise,” Cuomo said. “I don’t think this is the time or the place to talk about a pay raise.”
The governor also claimed the early reports that he and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg were exaggerated. Cuomo and Bloomberg teamed up on the new retirement system for future public workers. Cuomo said in the Talk-1300 interview that the Tier Six plan was needed because some local governments “truly flirt with bankruptcy.”
“I think those stories of the mayor and I being at odds were grossly overblown,” he said. “I enjoy our personal relationship.”
Later on The Capitol Pressroom, Cuomo dropped the extremists line, saying, “Both houses are made up of reasonable people of good will.”
He also said a detailed list of construction projects will soon be released, part of the newly created NY Works Program, a $15 billion reorganization of capital projects.
The overall goal is spurring private-sector job creation at minimal state expense, he said.
“Government can make a difference,” he said. “Government, not for a lot of money, can play an active role and a productive role.”
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