ALBANY – Gov. Kathy Hochul finally announced a record $254 billion budget deal with lawmakers Monday – nearly a month after blowing through the deadline for the spending plan.
Hochul told reporters the “general agreement” will include changes to the state’s discovery laws, aimed at curbing what she said was a spike in criminal cases getting dismissed over technicalities.
The spending plan will make it easier to force mentally ill people into treatment, and expand Kendra’s Law, which governs assisted outpatient treatment, Hochul said, without providing details.
“As much as it is easy to criticize everything here, it is all focused on helping lift up New York families,” the governor said Monday evening from the state capital building in Albany.
“I’m really proud of this budget. Again, it exceeded all expectations in terms of the policies that were questioned by many that we couldn’t get it done,” she said.
The two initiatives were key policy proposals of Hochul’s, as was a “bell-to-bell” cellphone ban in schools, which she said would also be included in the budget deal. Legislators still have to draft and vote to pass the bills that will make up the fiscal year 2026 budget, which they are expected to do this week.
The budget deal will include an increase to a payroll mobility tax on businesses in the MTA region meant to fund the transit agency’s $68 billion five-year capital plan, Hochul said.
The governor also got her so-called inflation refund checks, though at a reduced $2 billion, instead of the $3 billion she pitched for qualifying families and individuals.
The breakdown for those reimbursements will be:
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Families making under $150,000: $400
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Families making between $150,000 and $300,000: $300
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Individuals making under $75,000: $200
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Individual making between $75,000 and $150,000: $150
The budget would represent a 6% increase over last year’s enacted $239 billion spending plan, and a 15% increase over Hochul’s first budget as governor in 2023.
The announcement came after a drawn-out standoff between Hochul and fellow Democrats in control of the state legislature over the governor’s pitch in January of a slightly smaller $252 billion spending plan. The budget had been due April 1.
The two sides had mostly been haggling over the governor’s policy asks — including her marquee public safety proposal to revamp discovery laws, which govern evidence-sharing requirements in criminal cases.
For several weeks, Hochul refused to budge on her proposal meant to stymie a wave of what she deemed as frivolous criminal case dismissals under the 2019 discovery laws signed into law by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is now running for New York City mayor.
That logjam largely cleared after Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) effectively got out in front of Hochul and announced the legislature had worked out an agreement with the five New York City district attorneys to change laws around how evidence is shared ahead of criminal trials.
The package will also include some sort of masking restriction, Hochul said. It is expected to add a penalty “enhancer” for someone who conceals their identity while committing another crime.
Negotiators plan to finish locking down technical details following the “handshake” agreement, and put together the nine remaining legislative bills that lawmakers will vote on, likely as soon as later this week.
This is Hochul’s fourth state budget since taking over for Cuomo in the fall of 2021, and the second to last she needs to pass ahead of her planned 2026 reelection bid.
