New York’s budget has topped a quarter trillion dollars. Trillion with T.
I wrote last week about Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposed $252 billion budget, which includes proposed spending on rebate checks for taxpayers (totaling $3 billion this year), an income-tax cut to be phased in over the next two years and an expanded child tax credit, among other items.
It also includes funding to help school districts secure students’ cellphones and directs them to come up with their own policies to separate students from mobile devices “from bell to bell.”
(My public media colleague Jeongyoon Han broke down the budget in this audio segment. My other colleague Jon Campbell reported more details on the reaction to Hochul’s cell phone proposal.)
Two things struck me about this year’s budget. The first was that the Democratic governor isn’t picking any fights with Albany’s big institutional players. Last year’s effort to change the education funding formula, which stirred opposition from parents, district leaders and teachers unions, is gone. Major efforts to rein in (or try to reduce) Medicaid spending — projected to increase by 14% next year — are absent.
The second thing is the budget’s sheer size. Spending is projected to grow about $10 billion for the fiscal year that starts April 1, or about four percent. As Andrew Rein of the fiscal watchdog Citizens Budget Commission notes, the state budget has grown by $100 billion in the last 10 years. (Granted: there was a global pandemic and large influxes of federal funding associated with it.) Rein and other fiscal conservatives, including many Republicans, worry about how sustainable things look in the long term.
I’ll be covering negotiations around the budget for the next several months. I joined WNYC’s Brian Lehrer last week to talk about my first impressions. Click here to listen.
LOOKING FOR SOURCES: Hochul is also proposing a change in the legal standard by which a person can be compelled to mental health treatment. Right now, a person must behave in a way that shows they are “likely to result in serious harm to the person or others.” The proposed standard would “allow intervention when individuals are at substantial risk of harm due to their inability to meet basic needs like food, shelter, or medical care.”
Hochul’s aim here is to get homeless people who are in the subway system and other public places into treatment. They may not be threatening harm to themselves or others, but they appear to be struggling.
Changing this legal line is multi-faceted, though. What about a person who suffers from depression and has stopped caring for themselves? Someone who is schizophrenic? Someone who suffers from addiction?
I’m looking to speak with people who have tried to get mental health assistance for a loved one, against their will, and run up against these legal lines. If that describes you or someone you know, and you would consider sharing your story, please get in touch.
WISDOM FROM JOAN: My favorite part of the newspaper is the obituary section. The news pages are dominated by people who live their lives loudly. The obits tell me about neighbors whose lives were just as extraordinary, but lived at lower volume.
I often wish I could have met and spoke with some of the people who have just died, to ask them questions or hear more details about their earlier chapters. (As a journalist, I feel it’s my job to tease out the extraordinary aspects of people’s lives and share them.) Obituaries also make me think about how I want to spend my life.
So I was struck this morning by these sentences in the obituary for Joan Cassick, who died this month at age 91.
She was a collector, hunter of beautiful things, lover of music, and curated a life of beauty for herself and those she loved. This gift of vision she passed down to others, and we will all continue to live a rich life as Joan has shown us that the greatest treasures in life are free. The birds at the feeder, roadside wildflowers, children laughing, the fall foliage and a full table that is well dressed in a space put together with a "good eye" from a meal cooked together. But most important, that time spent with family and friends was true wealth.
Rest in peace, Joan.
THE QUESTION: The Bills tonight are in the AFC Championship against the Kansas City Chiefs. Why are the Chiefs the only football team that that my teen and tween daughters have heard of?
Know the answer? Drop me a line at jimmy.vielkind@gmail.com. Or just write with thoughts, feedback or to say hi.
THE LAST ANSWER: Edgar Allan Poe, who died and is buried in Baltimore, wrote his famous poem “The Raven” from which the losing Baltimore team derives its name.