Featured News - Current News - Archived News - News Categories

Jacobs calls state budget a 'Big Apple' budget

Submitted

Wed, Apr 3rd 2019 12:35 pm

Says almost all new money goes to New York City, while burdens borne statewide

New York State Sen. Chris Jacobs said, “$100 million in new money for New York City subways while we see no new money for roads and bridges across the state, that basically summarizes the theme of this year’s budget.”

In the first year of what his camp called “complete domination of Albany by downstate elected officials,” Jacobs lamented the break from the traditional balance in the distribution of resources to both upstate and downstate.

“This year it was very clear who was in charge: New York City,” he said.

Jacobs said the downstate focus was clearly felt in the diversion of education funding to New York City at the expense of smaller school districts, new unfunded mandates on local governments in the form of early voting requirements, dramatic criminal justices mandates, and shifting of state responsibilities onto county governments.

Jacobs also expressed serious reservations about the changes in the budget to the criminal justice agenda relating to bail and release of witness identification.

“The budget is not the right place to push major statewide policy changes, and this criminal justice agenda was the most glaring example I’ve seen,” he said.

Jacobs highlighted the statement the Albany County DA, president of the District Attorneys’ Association of New York, said about this legislation in the budget. He quoted David Soares as saying, “While most New Yorkers were sleeping and enjoying the weekend, a handful of lawmakers with limited knowledge of the criminal justice system, behind closed doors, came to an agreement that will place unnecessary burdens on the workings of the criminal justice system and actually slow down the wheels of justice.”

Jacobs said he believes these criminal justice changes will make law-abiding New Yorker’s “less safe.”

“This budget has over $1 billion in new taxes and fees. New York City gets most of this new money, and we get a whole slew of new taxes, new unfunded mandates and poorly thought-through laws to live under,” he said. “The final insult during this awful budget was a resolution put before us in the middle of the night to give Gov. Cuomo a pay raise,”

Jacobs voted against the governor’s raise, which passed the Legislature. Cuomo will soon be the highest paid governor in the nation.

Hometown News

View All News