Cuomo’s minimum wage could drop out of the budget. Is that a smart move?

At a state Democratic Committee meeting last month, Gov. Andrew Cuomo listed three top priorities for this year: raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, instituting 12 weeks of paid family leave and spending $100 million to help turn around struggling schools.

The governor had already put the three measures in his executive budget proposal, which typically gives legislation a stronger chance of getting signed into law. Much of the governor’s power comes from his institutional control over the budget, and some of his major legislative feats – closing a $10 billion deficit, launching the Buffalo Billion, taking a key first step toward legalizing casino gambling – were achieved through this process. A similar dynamic is at play in the state Senate and Assembly. If one house can’t get a bill through as a stand-alone measure, convincing the governor to tuck it into his multibillion-dollar spending plan can be just the ticket.

This year, however, the put-it-in-the-budget approach might not pan out, at least when it comes to one high-profile piece of legislation. The proposed $15 minimum wage, which Cuomo has tied to the legacy of his late father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, and which he has traveled around the state promoting, is perhaps his most significant initiative this year – but it could be at risk of dropping out of the budget entirely. Although the governor said last week that the minimum wage should be included, he has left open the option of taking it up after the April 1 budget deadline.

But if he does put it on the back burner and tries to bring it back later on in the session, there’s no guarantee he’ll get anything beyond than the same lukewarm response from the Republican-controlled Senate. Cuomo has a limited track record of inserting major legislation into his budget, removing it before the deadline, and then persuading legislative leaders to pass it before the session ends in June. When a bill drops out of the budget, it’s often dead.

Then again, there are plenty of pathways to passage. Some of Cuomo’s biggest milestones were achieved well before or well after the end of March. Cuomo’s landmark same-sex marriage bill was voted on in June of 2011. In January of 2013 he signed the SAFE Act, his controversial gun control measure. Various ethics reforms were passed both as part of and separately from the budget over Cuomo’s five full terms. Like the minimum wage, most of these measures faced stiff opposition.

This year, a stand-alone bill to legalize mixed martial arts is poised to advance in the Assembly, where it has been bottled up for years. Instead of burying it in the budget, Assembly Democrats said they want to give both sides a chance to debate it. Countless other bills will be taken up in the so-called “Big Ugly” in June, when lawmakers rush to finalize as many last-minute deals as they can.

And last year alone, several items initially introduced in the budget were passed in June, including an extension of the property tax cap and mayoral control, an expansion of charter schools and the “Enough is Enough” law cracking down on sexual assault on college campuses.

But removal from the budget typically reflects strong opposition by at least one of “the three men in the room.” Already several other measures are looking like no-gos this year, from the governor’s proposed freeze on tolls on the Thruway to his overhaul of workers compensation. Advocates pushed to include the Dream Act, which would grant young undocumented immigrants access to state financial aid for college, while others lobbied for the inclusion of the Parental Choice in Education Act, which would encourage donations to private schools. Both were put in this year’s budget, yet neither is expected to make the final cut. And none of these measures are likely have better odds in May or June, barring a shift in control of the state Senate.

When it comes to the minimum wage, Cuomo’s strong support will undoubtedly alter the equation. The question is how much.

“Things like this, the governor wants to get it done in the budget, and is committed to getting it done in the budget, unless he sees it maybe not happening in the budget. And then his deadline extends, because Albany has never met a deadline that wasn’t fungible,” said Bob Bellafiore, a veteran of the Pataki administration who is now a communications consultant. “The governor, also, his main priority in the budget is having it done on time. So if it’s going to impair his ability to get his budget done by April 1, then you push off the item later.”

Andrew Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan announcing the end of the legislative session in 2015. Photo: Office of the Governor - Kevin P. Coughlin.

It used to be that the state budget simply dealt with matters that had a fiscal impact. Policy items not tied to spending or revenue were taken up separately. The dynamic changed under Gov. George Pataki, who began inserting non-fiscal policy language into his budget to maximize his leverage. Then-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver sued, and lost. Since then, it has become more common to include high-priority policy bills in the budget.

Although there is some debate over whether the minimum wage belongs in the budget, there is precedent for it. The last time the state raised it, in 2013, it was in the state’s spending plan. Wages aren’t necessarily a fiscal matter for state government, but the Legislature also passed tax cuts and credits for businesses to soften the blow.

“Minimum wage, also, at this point, has a minimal fiscal impact,” Bellafiore said. “It’s more of a policy thing, unless the state – in full disclosure, I have clients involved in this – funds a minimum wage increase for nonprofits who are funded by Medicaid. They get all their payments through the state, and they don’t have hamburgers on which they can raise their prices. So the minimum wage is a thing that would normally be done outside the budget process anyway. Technically, mechanically, even if you pass a bill after the budget that has a financial impact, you can always adjust the budget. You can make a special appropriation to fund a certain thing if there’s going to be a fiscal impact.”

Cuomo has sent mixed messages about when the minimum wage should be taken up, not only as a political matter but on a technical level. In late February he told reporters it is “tangentially related to the budget,” but that “you could argue that it’s not an essential budget item, that it’s a matter of policy that could be done after the budget.” A few weeks later, he asserted that the minimum wage, as well as paid family leave, which has been linked to his wage hike proposal, are “fundamentally economic issues that are customary for the budget.”

Of course, even though Cuomo has suggested he might have to delay it, he may follow through on his latest stance that he wants to yet reach a deal on the minimum wage this month.

Bruce Gyory, a political consultant who served in the Spitzer administration, said one tactic is to give the Legislature room to maneuver instead of applying pressure, at least publicly. That strategy played out successfully in the debate over same-sex marriage, he noted, when Cuomo cajoled lawmakers behind the scenes instead of publicly insisting that they back it.

“It doesn’t mean just because you’re not pressuring to have it done there, that it won’t be done as a part of the budget,” he said. “For example, you could see a functional trade – and I’m not predicting this will happen, but it will be a possibility – if the Senate wants a tax cut package to be a part of the budget, and it seems from press accounts recently that they would, that then that gives the governor an opportunity to say, ‘Well, if you want me to agree to this, then we ought to put minimum wage in there,’ rather than publicly putting a stick in their eye and saying, ‘No budget without minimum wage.’ It doesn’t mean you’re not trying to get it.”