NY could face shutdown (updated for 2011)

No unemployment checks, or food stamps, Limited State Police ,ect... We may be on our own for a bit. Your family wont think you were so "paranoid" for stocking up on food and other supplies if this happens now.

State parks will shut down AGAIN as well.


State officials: NY could face shutdown on Monday
State officials: New York bracing for shutdown if lawmakers don't pass spending bill


Michael Gormley, Associated Press Writer, On Friday June 11, 2010, 11:07 am
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- The Paterson administration is preparing New York agencies for a potential state government shutdown that could begin as early as Monday at midnight.

A statewide conference call sought to prepare departments for a shutdown if an emergency spending bill is rejected, said three state officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because sensitive budget negotiations continue between the governor and legislative leaders.

Some of the services that could be stopped under a shutdown include safety inspections, lottery games, parks and campgrounds, courts and unemployment offices.

The talk of a shutdown prompted state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli to issue a terse warning as he released his own list of services that would be suspended in a shutdown.

"Stop talking about a government shutdown and get to work and pass a budget," DiNapoli said. "Instead of playing games with extender bills, it's time to get down to the real task at hand: passing a budget that makes the hard choices about spending that need to be made to put New York back on the road to fiscal sanity."

DiNapoli's list of services on the line included:

--Businesses wouldn't get paid for goods and services provided after June 13.

--Social service payments for children and family services including welfare and food stamps would be frozen.

--Schools wouldn't get funding for education of homeless children.

--153,000 state employees wouldn't get paid on June 23 as scheduled, though bond holders, retirees and taxpayers owed refunds would be paid because that spending requires no legislative authorization.

Indications of Albany showdown fizzling
Republican state senators may vote "yes"
Updated: Monday, 14 Jun 2010, 12:28 PM EDT
Published : Monday, 14 Jun 2010, 12:28 PM EDT

Rich Newberg
Posted by: Emily Lenihan
ALBANY, N.Y. (WIVB) - There are indications the showdown is fizzling.

Some republicans in the state senate may vote "yes" on the governor's latest emergency spending bill, to avoid a government shutdown.

The governor has proposed cuts of $151 million dollars for Mental Hygiene, and $176 million in Human Services.

The total of $327 million may give republicans justification for voting for the extender.

Some of those "yes" votes are likely to come from senators who represent the Albany area, because so many state workers live in that area.

Assemblyman Jack Quinn said, "There's two or three republicans in the senate that represent the capital district, where as you know, there are thousands of government employees, and I think those are two or three people that planned on voting for the extension."

Lawmakers are scheduled to go into session at any time now.

we get one more week before this all happens again ... FUN WOW..

We can look forward to this same situation next week unless they work together on the REAL budget. Patterson may be able to pull off one more emergency spending bill; It would seem however from the huffing I hear that he wont be able to do anymore then that ..If that. If we do not have a state budget in place in under two weeks I would not be surprised to see the government shut down. Patterson seems to be reaching over now to the right and working with them instead of playing by the Obama mantra of "full speed ahead we have the votes ourselves and we dont need you so Frack off".

Reguardless prepare as if it is going to shut down ....even though none of them wont to face the wrath in November because they stopped unemployment checks and food to children; push has come to shove for many of them. The State needs a budget in place as this situation is fast becoming untenable. The longer these emergency spending bills go on the further indebt the state is. I hate to say it but if shuting down Government for a week lights the napalm under their brains and gives us a budget it may be better for all in the long run.

Another Monday and here we go again.

Latest extender jacks up tobacco prices
Updated: Monday, 21 Jun 2010, 10:27 PM EDT
Published : Monday, 21 Jun 2010, 10:27 PM EDT

Michele McClintick
Posted by: Eli George
ALBANY, N.Y. (WIVB) - New York State smokers will be sending millions more of their money up in smoke, now that lawmakers have passed the most expensive tobacco tax in America.

Sen. George Maziarz warned, "There will be a clash of cultures here in this state."

Sen. Maziarz is referring to a Native American backlash over a sales tax increase on cigarettes. The tax increase passed, despite the state's Republican senators all voting "no" to raising the sales tax. The plan also allows New York to collect tax on Indian reservations from non-tribal customers.

"You really wonder if this isn't just phony revenue. If they're putting this out there, knowing they're not going to collect it, just to get through the budget process," wondered Sen. Maziarz.

Sen. Michael Ranzenhofer said New Yorkers are already overburdened.

Sen. Ranzenhofer commented, "You're continuing to drive more and more people from this state."

The tax will be raised from $2.75 to $4.35, making a pack cost over $9. The tax on cigars pipe and chewing tobacco and other tobacco products will jump from 46 percent of the wholesale price, to 75 percent, all of this is expected to bring in around $440 million this year.

And while lawmakers continue to pass the entire budget, another extension was voted on, but the deadline came a bit too late for New York's Budget Division. Some of the 153,000 state workers due to be paid Wednesday now likely won't get paid until at least Thursday.

Lawmakers voted on just over a billion dollarsin savings Monday. This was the 12th time that lawmakers voted on a budget extension. Governor David Paterson has given the legislature a deadline of next Monday.


Let the games begin.

Legislature to adopt last piece of NY budget
NY Legislature to adopt last piece of state budget nearly 3 months late; vetoes expected

The Associated Press, On Monday June 28, 2010, 2:49 pm


New York's Legislature was ready to adopt the final piece of a 2010-11 state budget totaling about $136 billion and addressing a $9.2 billion deficit. Gov. David Paterson, however, promises to veto the Legislature's added spending that he claims puts the plan out of balance.

The Legislature's budget scheduled for votes beginning Monday, pending any vetoes, includes:

--Eliminating the state's 4 percent sales tax on clothing and shoes under $110 on Oct. 1. An exemption would resume April 1, but for clothes and shoes sold at less than $55. On April 1, 2012, the $110 exemption would return.

--Delaying some promised tax credits to employers until 2013.

--Cutting in half the tax deduction for charitable donations by about 3,500 New Yorkers who make over $10 million a year.

--Eliminating the school tax relief credit known as STAR to owners of homes valued at more than $2 million and limit a tax break for wealthy city residents.

--Increasing the tax credits available to film and television productions to $420 million, from $350 million, when they produce movies and shows from New York, most of which is in New York City.

--Counting prisoners as living in the community in which they last resided, rather than where their prison cell is located, for purposes of redrawing election district lines. That would count tens of thousands of more votes in New York City, a heavily Democratic area; and eliminate them from sparsely populated upstate areas, a heavily Republican area, where most prisons are. That could cost a Senate seat in next year's realignment.

--Allowing state and local governments to borrow from the state pension system to make their payments as employers into the pension system. The borrowing will cost 5 percent in interest payments in what critics called a one-shot gimmick.

So far, the 2010-11 budget includes:

-- $302 million cut from aid and incentives to New York City, although lawmakers say a proposal could compensate for the loss by giving the city school district more money. Other cities would also see decreases as $15 million more is cut in the rest of the state.

-- $17 million saved by suspending training of a new state police class for a second year, with savings by attrition and reassigning 90 troopers from schools.

-- $4 million saved by delaying the extensive roof renovation at the Capitol.

-- $78 million in new spending to better serve indigent defendants accused of crimes.

-- $3 million spent to keep the Buffalo Bills in Buffalo, part of a decade-old deal.

--$25 million allocated to continue free MetroCards for New York City students.

--$7 million saved by closing the Lyon Mountain minimum security prison in Clinton County and the minimum security part of the Butler Correctional Facility in Wayne County. Two northern New York facilities -- at Ogdensburg and Mineville --will remain open.

-- A $1.60 per pack increase in the cigarette tax to $4.35, the nation's highest. Chewing tobacco and most other tobacco products would also be taxed at 75 percent of the wholesale cost, up from 46 percent; snuff would be taxed at $2 per ounce, instead of 96 cents per ounce; and little cigars would be taxed like cigarettes.

-- Trying to tax cigarettes sold by Indian tribes to non-Indians. State officials say that will comply with federal law, but tribal leaders say the taxation violates treaties and their sovereignty. A stamp would be placed on cigarettes showing the tax was paid and a portion of cigarettes estimated to be smoked by tribe members would be exempt from the tax.

The tobacco actions would bring in $440 million.

-- $327 million worth of cuts in programs for the mentally disabled and social services programs, including welfare. The Legislature reversed some proposed cuts in welfare aid and assistance for low-income elderly residents as well as in summer youth programs.

-- $775 million in health care cuts. New York City area hospitals would see $250 million of the reductions. The cuts will hit hospitals, nursing homes and other health providers and programs statewide. The final cuts include $6 million for stem-cell research.

Paterson to veto Legislature’s budget additions


ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. David Paterson said Monday he will veto all 6,900 budget additions and pork-barrel projects approved hours before by the state Legislature in its budget.

“The reality is the day of reckoning in the state has come,” Paterson said before vetoing the first bill, which would have restored $600 million to his $1.4 billion cut to school aid.

The lame duck Democrat, who spent 20 years as a senator advocating for many of the programs he’s now cutting, said he took no joy in it.

“I never take any joy in vetoing education money, health care, services for the poor and the indigent,” he said. “It breaks my heart to do this.”

But he said he had to do it because to do otherwise “would be proverbially kicking the can down the road and creating a greater problem.”

The governor called the major elements of the budget approved Monday by the Democrat-led Assembly irresponsible, unbalanced and worse than continuing a miserable fiscal status quo. The state faces a $9.2 billion deficit in the second full year of a fiscal crisis.

Senate’s Democratic majority spokesman Austin Shafran said it was “a typical Albany power play with schoolchildren and taxpayers caught in the middle.”

“We passed a balanced budget that makes tough cuts and smart restorations while providing New Yorkers with well-deserved tax relief,” he said.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said vetoes will mean larger classes, higher property taxes and more expensive tuition at the State University of New York and City University of New York.

“The budget passed by the Legislature would dramatically reduce state spending, restore funding for our schools and maintain our fundamental commitment to ensuring that SUNY and CUNY remain affordable for all New Yorkers,” Silver said.

The Senate and Assembly passed the biggest bills needed to finish the state budget, which was due April 1. The budget is estimated at about $136 billion.

Paterson said New York can no longer afford a Legislature that panders to voters and special interests that help drive the state into fiscal crisis.

Attention now shifts to the Senate’s Republican minority, which could block any veto override attempt.

Senate Republicans voted as a bloc against the Democratic majority’s budget bills Monday, saying they oppose higher spending and more taxes. Republicans have 30 seats in the 62-seat Senate so Democrats would need Republicans to muster the two-thirds vote needed to override any veto.

Paterson said the last straw for him came when the Legislature refused to accept his idea of a contingency fund in the event all or most of $1 billion in Medicaid funding, now threatened in Washington, never arrives. The governor said that the Legislature’s budget is about $500 million out of balance before accounting for any loss of Medicaid funds.

“I am disappointed, stunned and frankly chagrined with a Legislature that is either unable or unwilling to address the problems that the people of the state have,” Paterson said. “Rather than act in the interest of the people of New York state, they have engaged in legislation that is in self-interest and presented us a series of bills that have the same gimmicks, chicanery and avoidance conduct that has characterized fiscal management in this state for far too long.”

He said his action won’t shut down government as had been a threat in the past four weeks. He said the Legislature’s approvals on Monday, which were amendments to his basic budget bills, means government will continue if his vetoes withstand any override.

With the biggest bills passed Monday, the Legislature will take up the revenue bill and two bills paying for the judiciary and Legislature’s expenses, which usually pass without resistance. A more controversial change in a school aid bill to direct more money to property tax relief is expected Tuesday or Wednesday.

Republican Assemblyman James Tedisco, of Schenectady County, said the Democratic budget proposals — the governor’s and the Legislature’s — tax and spend too much as the state is trying to pull out of the recession.

“If they had a third foot they’d shoot that, too,” he said.

New York Lawmakers' Budget Bills Hit by Governor Paterson's Partial Veto
By Michael Quint - Jun 29, 2010
Email Share
Business ExchangeTwitterDeliciousDiggFacebookLinkedInNewsvinePropellerYahoo! BuzzPrintThe New York Legislature approved budget bills that its leaders said closed a $9.2 billion deficit and eliminated the threat of a government shutdown that has loomed over Albany this month.

Governor David Paterson vetoed $419 million of education spending the same day it was approved by lawmakers. He will veto other spending increases as well as 6,800 so-called member items that lawmakers can award to groups in their districts, he said at a press conference last night in Albany.

The bills passed by Democratic lawmakers controlling the Senate and Assembly “presented us with the same gimmicks, chicanery and avoidance conduct that has characterized fiscal management of this state for far too long,” said Paterson, a Democrat who isn’t seeking election in November.

Paterson, 56, said the lawmakers’ budget isn’t balanced. He added that it would result in a deficit of $400 million to $1.5 billion, depending on how much the U.S. Congress reduces $1.06 billion of extra federal money for Medicaid that he said the state isn’t going to collect in full.

“We responsibly have to have a Medicaid contingency plan” or else the state will face a deficit later this year, he said. When a budget deficit emerged last year, lawmakers failed to approve spending cuts to close it, “and I’m not going to let that happen again,” Paterson said.

He described how other states are preparing for the loss of some Medicaid funding, and said it was wrong for legislators to argue that such planning would make it easier for federal lawmakers to cut the program.

Medicaid Reserve

The veto came after lawmakers refused to accept a bill from Paterson that contained less education funding than they wanted. They also wouldn’t reduce other spending to create a reserve to cover the potential for reduced Medicaid payments.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said the Legislature’s budget plan “provides adequate revenue.” Paterson’s veto “will mean larger classes, higher property taxes and more expensive tuition” for students in the state or New York City university systems, Silver said.

Lawmakers said the additional education funding would have reduced property taxes because many districts would have been required to apply the funds to lower the local levy on homeowners.

After passing the budget in pieces, with each bill consisting of hundreds of pages of itemized appropriations, there is no compilation of the spending measures to show how much the state plans to spend in the fiscal year that began April 1.

Enough Revenue

“We do not have a number,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Carl Kruger, when asked the size of the budget during debate on the Senate floor. Even without knowing a spending total, there is enough revenue to balance the budget, said Kruger, a Democrat from Brooklyn. Lawmakers plan to vote on tax changes that are part of their revenue plan later this week, said Senate Democratic leader John Sampson of Brooklyn.

Total spending, including federal aid, is about $136 billion for the year that began April 1, Austin Shafran, a spokesman for Sampson, said after the Senate approved the bills.

Lawmakers in the Senate and Assembly assumed the full federal Medicaid payment would be coming, as did Paterson in his February budget update. Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate refused to approve the spending, leading Paterson to propose a 10 percent cut in agency budgets to fund a special reserve for any reduction in the Medicaid payment.

Shutdown Avoided

By appropriating money for parts of state government not covered by earlier budget measures, the Legislature has ended the threat of a government shutdown if it didn’t pass Paterson’s weekly emergency spending bills, according to Sampson and Paterson.

New York, the nation’s third-most populous state, has operated under emergency spending measures since April 1, after lawmakers and the governor failed to agree on how to close the $9.2 billion deficit in a $135 billion spending plan Paterson proposed in January.

In the absence of a comprehensive budget, the governor has shuffled funds between accounts and delayed payments to schools and contractors.

Same story just new players.....April budget issues may close down state government .

http://gothamist.com/2011/03/23/video_cuomo_warns_of_ny_state_gover.php

well..............NYS has a budget EARLY .....Hell must be froze over. Get in line for the free Sleigh Rides and snow cones!!!