How our poll results match up with one-house state budget proposals

Two weeks ago, we put out a poll asking our readers to choose which legislative measures would make the final cut when the state Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo hammer out the executive budget this month.

We listed nine measures (plus one “other” category), based on previously stated priorities from Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, and respondents were able to pick more than one.

With the Senate and Assembly each releasing their one-house budget proposals today, I thought it would be interesting to look at how the results of our survey match up to the Legislature’s early priorities.

• Going into budget season, Cuomo devoted a lot of rhetoric to pushing his proposal for paid family leave and a $15 minimum wage. The former was a runaway favorite in our survey, with 69 percent of respondents believing that the proposal would pass muster. It seems a given that paid family leave will be in the final document, as Flanagan included Cuomo’s plan – which calls for up to 12 weeks of paid time off for workers to care for a new child or ill relative – in the Republican-led Senate’s budget proposal.
• The minimum wage hike was not viewed very favorably by our survey respondents – only 15 percent thought it would be in the final executive budget, putting the proposal in a four-way tie for third place in our poll, along with property tax relief, raising taxes on wealthy New Yorkers, legalizing mixed martial arts and passing a new 421-a tax credit. Indeed, Flanagan has been very cool to raising the minimum wage, in part because it is seen as onerous for small businesses, and neglected to include it in the Senate budget proposal, while Heastie did account for it in the Assembly budget. That doesn’t mean the proposal is dead altogether, as Flanagan and Cuomo could be discussing a deal to keep it on the table – possibly in return for the governor staying out of any Democratic efforts to take back the Senate. The governor could also convene a wage board to institute the minimum wage increase, as proposed by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
• Ethics reform and closing the gap elimination adjustment were the second-most favorable measures in our survey, with nearly 24 percent of our respondents saying those proposals would make the final cut. Indeed, it appears the focus on government ethics in the wake of the Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos convictions last year could beget some changes in the way business is conducted in Albany. The Assembly has put forth a proposal that would include closure of the LLC loophole and limit lawmakers’ outside income to 40 percent of the annual salary of New York State Supreme Court Justices. Cuomo included the former in his budget proposal, though he wants outside salary to be limited to 15 percent of legislative base pay. So far, nothing has been reported about the gap elimination adjustment in either the Senate or Assembly budget proposals, though Cuomo has called for eliminating the gap adjustment over the next two years, which Flanagan has publicly rejected.
• Very few of our respondents – 7 percent – believe that Cuomo will actually go through with his proposal to shift $485 million in state support for CUNY to New York City’s budget ledger. If the Democratic Assembly has anything to say about it, the funding structure of the university system will remain the same, and Heastie also wants a two-year tuition freeze.
• The Dream Act was the one measure to not garner a single vote in our survey, and for good reason. The proposal, which would allow undocumented immigrants in New York to apply for state college tuition assistance, has passed the Assembly for five straight years, only to see it die in the Republican-controlled Senate. Predictably, the Senate came out against the Dream Act on Saturday, and it seems unlikely to pass for a sixth straight year.