Gov. Andrew Cuomo's budget plan offers a spectrum of cuts critics say go too far

The Times Union reported on the Governor's recent budget presentation:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's first budget presentation was brisk, dispensing with the laundry lists of previous years and concentrating on a few simple ideas he has been pushing for months. Key among them: State spending has become a runaway train.

In a 42-minute address at The Egg that was part PowerPoint lecture and part exhortation, Cuomo called the state's long-standing budget process "a special-interest protection program" because of the way it obscures the growth in spending on programs such as Medicaid and education.

"How anybody expected to pay for a 13 percent increase in Medicaid is beyond me," Cuomo said of the most recent built-in increases driving the $53 billion-plus program.

The slumping national economy, loss of federal stimulus funds and Cuomo's determination to rethink the way money is allocated resulted in a budget that for the first time in 15 years has actually shrunk year to year.

Cuomo's budget proposal came in at $132.9 billion, down $3.7 billion, or 2.3 percent, from the current fiscal year's adjusted budget of $136.5 billion.

As he warned, education and health care, which make up the biggest chunk of state spending, will get the largest cuts. School aid would drop $1.5 billion from $20.9 billion to $19.4 billion, based on the school year that begins July 1.

Medicaid is slated to lose $982 million, or 2 percent, while there's another $2.85 billion in "gap-closing actions" that will be coming from Cuomo's Medicaid Redesign Team.

For state workers, Cuomo is proposing a 10 percent agency cut, and seeks savings in unspecified givebacks that need to add up to $450 million. If unions don't agree, the governor warned there could be up to 9,800 layoffs.

Cuomo noted that the state was suffering from a loss of federal stimulus funds, which he explicitly compared to an addictive substance: "We inhaled it and injected it into our body," Cuomo said, and will now have to handle the withdrawal.

As usual, the blizzard of statements decrying the cuts -- from unions, advocacy groups and others -- was almost as ferocious as the snowstorm that raged outside, and kept some people from getting to the budget presentation.

"There is nothing fair nor shared in the proposed state budget," said Danny Donohue, president of the Civil Service Employees Association, which along with the Public Employees Federation, is one of two major state unions.

"The State Executive Budget proposal would cripple public services without asking any sacrifice from businesses, corporations and the millionaires and billionaires responsible for the economic crisis," added PEF's Ken Brynien.

Almost all of the advocates urged Cuomo to extend the so-called millionaires income tax surcharge set to expire at the end of 2011. Cuomo has repeatedly said he'll let the surcharge expire, and most lawmakers have agreed.

Realizing there would be pushback, Cuomo stressed that the heaviest cuts are reserved for the state operations under his control, most of which will sustain a 10 percent reduction compared to the low single digits for overall education and health care.

Much of the education and health care money goes to localities such as counties which operate Medicaid programs or to local school districts. Legislators tend to care more about funding for those locally based programs than for state agencies.

Also being de-funded is the governor's $85 million contribution toward member items, or pork barrel projects that individual lawmakers get for their districts. But Cuomo avoided attacking the Legislature, although he railed against the system of budget-building they have helped create over the years.

Cuomo wants to tie growth to a more objective measure, such as inflation or personal income growth. He also wants health care organizations and schools as well as economic development agencies to compete for money through grant applications.


Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Painful-road-to-recovery-lies-ahead-989491.php#ixzz1CpEVUUAn