ALBANY, N.Y. — Faced with rising concerns over crime in an election year, Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York State legislative leaders on Thursday reached agreement on an expansive budget that included measures to strengthen bail restrictions and tighten rules for repeat offenders.
The $220 billion budget would provide hundreds of millions of dollars in relief for New Yorkers grappling with skyrocketing gasoline prices by suspending some taxes at the fuel pump. The spending plan also commits billions of dollars toward affordable child care and includes a substantial taxpayer subsidy for a new Buffalo Bills stadium.
The most contentious negotiations had nothing to do with money but with the governor’s push to include changes to the state’s bail laws in the budget discussions. It was a stumbling block that caused lawmakers to miss the April 1 deadline.
Under the agreement, Ms. Hochul, a moderate Democrat running for her first full term this year, managed to persuade a largely reluctant Democratic-led Legislature to enact changes to a 2019 bail law that barred judges from setting bail for defendants charged with less serious crimes.
The revised law will direct judges to consider new factors — including whether a defendant is accused of seriously harming another person or has a history of gun use — in setting bail.
The changes are a significant win for Ms. Hochul, who faced fierce pushback on her bail proposals from a range of opponents, including fellow Democrats and public defenders. But the governor, in negotiating her first budget, held firm with the more progressive Democratic lawmakers who had strenuously objected to any rollback.
The outcome reflected the latest efforts by Democratic leaders in New York to address voter concerns about public safety ahead of elections in November, when Republicans are expected to perform strongly.
Democratic leaders in Albany have argued that the 2019 changes are not to blame for an increase in violence in New York City. But they have also said that they hoped that alterations would improve public safety.
Ms. Hochul described the changes as a comprehensive package that she said would continue “the progress we’ve made in the past to make sure our criminal justice system is fair.”
The budget negotiations were atypical: The state is not facing the usual gloom-and-doom projections of deficits and is instead overflowing with an influx of federal money.
That gave Democratic leaders the flexibility to spread spending across a number of voter-friendly initiatives, even though it sometimes put Ms. Hochul at odds with lawmakers over how much to spend on certain programs. The final budget is 3 percent larger than last year’s, cushioned not only by federal funds but also by stronger-than-expected tax revenues.
It includes ambitious spending increases to expand access to child care by providing subsidies to thousands of families who previously did not qualify. The initiative was one of the top policy priorities for Democrats in Albany — so much so that they greatly expanded child care funding beyond the level that Ms. Hochul had proposed.
Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate, said on Thursday that Ms. Hochul had also agreed with lawmakers on additional spending to increase wages for home care workers and widen health care coverage for some undocumented immigrants.
Ms. Hochul had sought to permanently allow bars and restaurants to sell alcoholic drinks to-go, a pandemic-era measure that expired last year. Under the deal, lawmakers agreed to allow to-go drinks again for three years, despite opposition from the liquor store industry and concerns that the measure could lead to more public drinking.
The governor clinched other top priorities, including a plan meant to overhaul the state’s troubled ethics commission, as well as $600 million in public money to help replace the Bills’ aging Highmark Stadium in the Buffalo suburbs, overcoming opposition from…
Read More: New York Toughens Bail Law in $220 Billion Budget Agreement