How Albany Pulled The Revised FY 2009 Budget

There are only a few months left in the fiscal year of 2009 and only a couple before Albany must come up with a budget for FY 2010. Yesterday, they took care of the shortfalls of this year, without addressing the concerns for the next. With our state government as dysfunctional as it is, how did they manage to keep the machine humming til October?

From The NY Times:

The agreement employs a grab bag of more than dozen spending cuts, tax increases, and accounting devices, along with the government equivalent of piggy-bank raids, like $306 million taken from the accounts of the New York Power Authority, a public utility that is theoretically independent from the executive branch. But a much larger deficit still looms in next year’s budget.

In the agreement reached on Tuesday, tuition will rise for students at the State University of New York, adding $62 million to state coffers; $50 million dollars will be cut from the state’s Environmental Protection Fund; Mr. Paterson will squeeze $135 million more out of the state agencies he leads by scrutinizing contracts and capital spending; the state will also delay by several months a tax rebate to New York City, taking advantage of the different city and state fiscal years.

The plan was basically like putting a band-aid on a gaping wound. It works for a few months, but does not address the concerns of next year at all. As the Times points out, reform groups are unhappy, the Governor is certainly displeased and it all has to be reexamined by April. What they really need is a plan that works, but until then it will be all about squabbling, such as that highlighted between Skelos and Smith at the end of the article.