DiNapoli calls budget a blueprint for fiscal failure
State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli said leaders missed a chance this year to curtail state spending, so budget deficits are likely to continue in the years ahead.
“Some tougher choices need to be made about spending,” DiNapoli told reporters before addressing the New York State United Teachers convention Friday in the Buffalo Niagara Convention Center. “We are still in a tough economy.”
He said the budget enacted Friday by the State Senate for the current fiscal year relies too heavily on economic stimulus funds from the federal government and counts on other revenue that might not materialize.
Gov. David A. Paterson expressed similar worries recently, even though the budget he shaped with legislative leaders imposes more than $8 billion in new taxes and fees on New Yorkers with little slowdown in spending. Business groups have criticized Paterson and the Legislature for taking the wrong approach.
“My first view is that some of the revenue assumptions are risky,” DiNapoli said Friday. “And the real issue is, as you move forward a year from now, two years from now, when the federal stimulus money is completed and some of the taxes may start to expire, . . . you are going to have a big gap once again with the New York State budget.
“So we still have this challenge in New York as to how we align our revenues and our spending. And just as New York families are tightening their belts and making tough choices about spending, now is the time for state government to do that.”
The budget, totaling $131.8 billion, attempts to close a projected deficit that had mushroomed to almost $18 billion as tax income waned. Asked what he would have done, DiNapoli said the budget that Paterson initially proposed made more sense because it cut spending for health care, a major expense.
“The governor was on that path. Some of that got lost in the budget negotiation. And more emphasis seemed to be on raising taxes and fees,” DiNapoli said.
Like Paterson, DiNapoli is a Democrat, and both are from downstate — Paterson from Manhattan and DiNapoli from Long Island.
Paterson had wanted to slow the growth in reimbursements to hospitals and nursing homes while devoting more money to preventive programs.
Local 1199, State Employees International Union, the state’s most powerful union representing health care employees, then went after the governor in a publicity campaign, and nearly $1 billion was restored.
After the Assembly, Senate and the governor enact the budget, DiNapoli said, his staff will assess the likelihood that the state will collect the projected revenues.
Paterson’s initial budget had deeply cut aid to public education, another major category of state spending. Aid to education was restored during negotiations with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, and State Senate Majority Leader Malcolm A. Smith, D-Queens.
DiNapoli did not lament that as he spoke to the teachers union.
“We need to be supportive of those who are making the choice to invest in the future of our New York economy,” he said.
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