Blair Horner

With spring and lawn care season right around the corner, New Yorkers aren’t only preparing for warmer weather and enjoying the great outdoors: They’re steeling themselves for the irritating ramp up of loud, dirty gas-powered lawn equipment.

April 1st is the first day of New York’s fiscal year, meaning that it is the day when a new state budget should be in place. Yet April 1, 2025 will come and go, without a new state budget on the books.

While the Capitol continued to buzz about progress on budget deliberations, a state court decision garnered a lot of attention from lawmakers. The decision from a state Supreme Court judge in Suffolk County found a state law limiting the outside income of lawmakers constitutional. The law limits the amount of money that a lawmaker can make outside of his or her legislative salary to no more than $35,000 annually.

The nation’s annual “Sunshine Week” started this past weekend. “Sunshine Week” is the annual recognition of the need for government openness. The idea of drawing attention to public interest in transparency in government was first celebrated nationally in 2005.

New York lawmakers continue to move ahead on developing a state budget that is due to be in place by April 1st.

The second step in developing a state budget wrapped up last week with the Legislature holding its final hearings on the governor’s proposed fiscal plans (that was the first step). Lawmakers held four hearings with two big ones related to the state’s future economy: higher education and economic development.

Monday February 24th kicks off the last week of the Legislature’s public hearings into Governor Hochul’s proposed budget. One of the biggest issues under the microscope this week: the financing of higher education.

New York’s growing trash crisis has been well-documented. The state’s capacity to take this problem on is dwindling. According to a 2023 report by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (“DEC”), “New York’s 25 municipal solid waste landfills have a combined landfill capacity of between 16 and 25 years.”

State lawmakers continue to review Governor Hochul’s $252 billion proposed budget. This week’s big hearing focuses on health care – by far the largest chunk of state spending. According to the governor, New York is expected to spend over $100 billion of the $252 billion proposed budget on health care.

The big Albany news last week was the unveiling of Governor Hochul’s 2025-2026 Executive Budget. This raises the curtain on the budget process and while hammering out a final budget is rarely easy, the prospects for the governor’s plans are boosted by forecasted surpluses of $3.5 billion in the current fiscal year and another $1.8 billion for the fiscal year starting on April 1.