Don’t pop the champagne yet.
That is effectively what New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie advised Gov. Kathy Hochul, who yesterday declared victory in the lengthy negotiations over the 2026-2027 state budget.
Hochul claimed her office and lawmakers in Albany had agreed on the major policy issues including her auto insurance reforms that had stood in the way of a final budget deal.
But fellow budget negotiator Heastie threw cold water on her claims of a budget agreement by pointing out that the money issues have yet to be decided. After all, he suggested, there is no budget agreement if there is no agreement on the dollars.
“Budgets are supposed to be about money, not policies. There’s no budget deal,” Heastie told the media shortly after Hochul made her announcement. He said “many open issues on money” remain.
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Heastie said a deal is “close” but criticized the process that has focused on policies but not money for the most part.
Other lawmakers have echoed Heastie’s assessment.
“I find it alarming that the governor was out two hours ago stating that there’s a budget deal… Yet there apparently is no agreement,” Senate Minority Leader O’Mara remarked.
Deputy Senate Majority Leader Mike Gianaris told Spectrum News there is frustration over “the continued insistence on non-budgetary policy items into this budget conversation,” he stated.
News reports indicated that in addition to the uncertainty over financial details, disagreements remain over taxes including a proposed second-home surcharge in New York City and on housing policy.
Hochul announced yesterday that the budget totals about $268 billion, Hochul announced yesterday that the budget totals about $268 billion, or $14 billion more in total spending than the 2025-2026 budget. She applauded that the deal includes agreement on auto insurance reforms, state environmental reviews, energy and childcare costs, federal immigration enforcement and other policies.
“I’m not going to mince the words — the negotiations were not easy. There were very substantive disagreements, tough choices and powerful special interests trying to influence the outcome,” she said.
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She thanked Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Heastie “for all of us spending a lot of time together, a lot of meals, a lot of conversations, getting to know each other at a personal level” and reaching agreement on issues.
Stewart-Cousins has acknowledged “conceptual agreements” on major policies but has not said there is a final deal.
Details to Come
Hochul did acknowledge that details must still be worked out.
“Over the next few days, the Legislature will be conferencing and voting on the budget bills, and as always, the final details will be worked out through that process,” the governor said yesterday.
The nonprofit watchdog Citizens Budget Commission (CBC) is among the groups waiting for those details.
“The governor provided a smattering of details on state finances—but to be clear, we have yet to see a budget,” CBC President Andrew S. Rein said in a statement. “What we do know is that the budget is bigger, but not likely better for fiscal stability compared to the governor’s proposal,” Rein stated.
CBC said it will analyze the full budget when the state releases the “full picture on how it plans to spend $268 billion of the people’s money and what it means for the future.”
The budget was supposed to be ready by April 1. But state lawmakers passed nine deadline extensions to keep the government functioning until they and the governor could come to an agreement. The current deadline expires May 11.
Hochul’s Summary
According to Hochul’s summary, the budget does not raise income or statewide business taxes and it maintains the governor’s powers to make future adjustments if actions by the federal government require.
In her remarks yesterday, Hochul singled out the fight over auto insurance as “a battle no one in the past had the fortitude to take on.”
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Budget negotiators have apparently gone along with most of Hochul’s auto insurance measures while adding some of their own.
She said that auto insurance costs for New Yorkers were being driven up by “staged crashes, organized fraud rings, corrupt doctors and legal loopholes that bad actors have exploited for years.”
She said “that nightmare” ends with this budget, and the state is “going to go after the ringleaders, cracking down on fraudulent claims and closing loopholes that let people who are at fault, or breaking the law, walk away with large payouts in the courtrooms.”
She touted measures in the budget she said would make sure that insurance companies are playing fair. “You’ll no longer have your rates set based on your education, your zip code or what you do for work,” she told the public. “We’re also putting a cap on the excess profits insurance companies bring in, and making sure that New Yorkers benefit from the savings our reforms create and not the insurance companies. It’s only fair.”
Top Photo: New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie
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