News New York governor Andrew Cuomo's budget reduces spending with cuts, layoffs Published: Tuesday, February 01, 2011 0diggs
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Click to enlarge AP Photo/Mike Groll New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo presents his 2011-2012 proposed Executive Budget in Albany, N.Y., on Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2011. Cuomo is proposing a budget that calls for as many as 9,800 layoffs in addition to cuts to Medicaid and school aid. ALBANY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday did what no New York governor has tried in 15 years: He unveiled a budget plan that would reduce overall spending — including up to 9,800 layoffs and what education advocates say is a historic cut in aid to public schools — as the state tries to get out from under crippling deficits.
The budget is being watched closely nationwide. Other states with fiscal years that begin after New York’s April 1 start will also have to grapple with historic deficits, unsustainable spending and unaffordable work force levels without slowing already sluggish economic recoveries.
“This budget achieves real, year-to-year savings while restructuring the way we manage our government,” Cuomo said Tuesday. “This is the first step toward rebuilding a new New York.”
Cuomo said the overall budget, including federal funds tied to state spending, decreases 2.7 percent under his plan, a reduction in spending not seen in Albany since the mid-1990s. That’s $3.7 billion less than the current 2010-11 budget, which was bloated by billions in temporary federal stimulus funds. The state operations portion grew by 1 percent.
Besides addressing a $10 billion deficit projected for the coming fiscal year, the spending cuts would reduce huge projected deficits in future years. Cuomo said the four-year total deficit would $9.2 billion, down from a projected $64.6 billion.
Cuomo’s spending plan presented Tuesday addresses what the comptroller’s office projected as a more than $10 billion deficit without new or higher taxes and without borrowing, a longtime Albany practice in hard fiscal times.
Cuomo’s proposal would cut $918.4 million in state aid to New York City, more than half of it school aid, and provide no municipal aid to the city for the second straight year.
Although short of some expectations of a deeper cut in the state budget that jumped a record $14 billion since 2008, the proposal remains an uncommonly conservative plan for Albany.
“The question always was, would he ’walk the walk,”’ said David Catalfamo, a GOP adviser and former top aide of Republican Gov. George Pataki, the last governor to reduce overall spending in a final budget. “This budget walks the walk.”
Cuomo’s $132.9 billion budget cuts education and health care spending and recommends layoffs through attrition. New York faces the same kind of historic shortfalls that states nationwide face when their executive budget proposals are due in the coming months.
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