Lawmakers are expected to finish passing the state budget Tuesday for Fiscal Year 2024 — now one month late.
Senators and assemblymembers debated and voted Monday on several budget bills that were printed over the weekend. State Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said the two remaining to be published will drop late Monday night or early Tuesday morning.
Details of changes to the bail reform law, mandated electrification of buildings and some of the most controversial policy changes negotiated over the last six weeks are expected to be included in "The Big Ugly" — Albany's annual budget bill that's most dense with policy.
"We're pretty much done ... We are very happy it will end tomorrow," Stewart-Cousins told reporters in the state Capitol on Monday, adding no issues are left to negotiate. "I'm very happy to say that we are finally being able to pass our budget and do the rest of the people's work."
The Legislature is expected to need another budget extender, which expires at noon Tuesday as a pro-forma vote to keep the state government funded.
Monday marked the first time Stewart-Cousins publicly commented on the $229 billion budget after Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a conceptual budget agreement in a last-minute press conference Thursday night.
The governor told leaders by telephone she planned to announce the budget framework as the last details were finalized over the weekend.
It's a tradition for policy to be inserted in the state spending plan, which the governor sets. But major initiatives that Gov. Hochul included in her executive budget, like addressing the state's housing crises, were scrapped from the final budget.
The Senate leader, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and other lawmakers have said too much complex policy caused this year's budget to be the latest in 13 years.
"I would liked to have this done sooner," Stewart-Cousins said. "This has been a very policy-laden budget and a lot of the policies had to be parsed through, so we did. I'm happy to the extent that we again have a budget that has significant wins for the people of New York and we're ready to pass it and go onto the next. Would I have wanted it earlier? Yes."
Lawmakers are expected to focus on housing priorities before session ends in June. The Senate continues to push for stronger protections for New York tenants, like the Good Cause Eviction bill.
Stewart-Cousins is hopeful about getting legislation passed before June 8, but warned addressing housing will take more than this year.
"Many of the policies were things that had been debated for a long time over the years, or should have been debated for a long time over the years, so it made it very difficult to quickly go through those things," she added. "That was frustrating, but here we are. And to the extent we've been able to navigate them, we have."