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Your afternoon must-read briefing informing the daily conversation among knowledgeable New Yorkers | | | | |  | | By Bill Mahoney | |  Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said she expects the budget to wrap up as soon as Tuesday after a monthlong delay. | New York State Senate Media Services | State legislators have finally started to pass this year’s budget, with both houses beginning to vote in the middle of the afternoon Monday on the spending plan that was due March 31. The goal is to have the whole budget approved by Tuesday, said Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins. “This was an extremely policy-laden budget, and many of the policies had been debated for a long time … which made it very difficult to just go quickly through those things,” she told reporters Monday. “So that was frustrating, but here we are.” There are 10 bills in the budget every year. The one authorizing the state to pay its debts passed in March, and seven of the nine others in the $229 billion spending plan have been printed since Sunday afternoon and began to move through committees on Monday. The two biggest pieces are not yet public. Those include the Education, Labor, and Family Assistance bill, which is shaping up to be this budget’s “big ugly” measure containing every item that is even a little controversial, from changes to bail reform to requirements for zero-emission home construction. The other is the State Operations spending bill, which is the one that actually counts for paying most imminent bills. Lawmakers will need to pass that by noon on Tuesday in order to avoid potential state payroll problems. While both houses are aiming to wrap up each of the nine bills by Tuesday, in Albany parlance “Tuesday” might mean when most people wake up on Wednesday — in other words, expect some late nights. To do that, they’ll need to rely on the controversial “messages of necessity” from Gov. Kathy Hochul that let them pass bills before the ink is dry. Good-government groups, and this year Republicans, have derided the use of messages from the governor to pass the budget, saying that by bypassing the three day waiting period to vote on bills, it leaves little time for lawmakers and the public to review them. “People just seem to like to use messages of necessity to finally close down budgets,” Senate Finance Chair Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) said as her house was beginning to vote. “I suppose we’re doing it this way because this is how the governors, whoever they are, seem to prefer for it to happen, particularly when we’re a month late.” Welcome back: Playbook PM will hit your inboxes every afternoon for an extended stretch. Please subscribe to read the latest news and notes from city and state government and politics in New York. Thanks for reading!
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Advocates in support of higher wages for tipped workers hung these signs outside Empire State Plaza in Albany, N.Y. on Monday, May 1, 2023. | Joseph Spector/POLITICO | MINIMUM WAGE: Lawmakers working at the Capitol found two giant banners running over four lanes of traffic at the entrance of the Empire State Plaza on Monday morning, asking the Legislature to stop leaving tipped workers out of their decisions. The agreement over the state’s budget announced by Hochul on Thursday included a raise of the New Yorkers' minimum wage to $17 an hour first and indexing it to inflation later Advocates from One Fair Wage, a tipped workers nonprofit, argue that this policy leaves tipped restaurant workers out of the equation. That is why the group is pushing for legislation to secure full minimum wage plus tips on top for this category of workers. According to a report the group recently released, the 2016 increase of minimum wage to $15 led to a 25 percent decline in wages for tipped restaurant workers. — Eleonora Francica
|  | From City Hall | | | | 
Mayor Eric Adams is raising concerns over unpaid water bills. | Spencer Platt/Getty Images | WATER WOES: Mayor Eric Adams extended the city’s temporary water bill amnesty program for another month on Monday — and issued a warning to the more than 50 high-end office buildings he said owe the city more than $7 million in overdue fees. If they don’t pay up, he’s prepared to shut their water off come mid-May. The program was rolled out three months ago to allow New Yorkers to pay the principal on their debt and have the rest of it forgiven. Adams hailed it as a success and said it brought the city more than $80 million while saving 86,000 people more than $12 million. At the same time, though, some of the most valuable properties in the city are continuing to use their water bills as a form of cash management, said Department of Environmental Protection commissioner Rohit Aggarwala. And just two single-family homes owe more than $100,000, according to the commissioner. “We’re really talking about mega mansions here,” he said. City Hall identified one of the high-end commercial buildings as 979 3rd Avenue, also known as the D&D Building, which is owned by real estate mogul Charles S. Cohen. Beth DeFalco, a DEP spokesperson, said the city is not giving out the list of residential properties mentioned at the press conference for privacy reasons. — Zachary Schermele
| | |  Melinda Person was elected president of the New York State United Teachers union on May 1, 2023. | Provided by NYSUT | POLITICO Q&A: The powerful New York State United Teachers has a new face at the helm. Melinda Person will be taking over after a contentious budget season that left the union with wins and losses. Person was elected to head the union over the weekend, succeeding Andy Pallotta, who held the job since 2017. She’s been with the union since 2006, and is moving up from her position as executive director and political director. Person recently sat down with POLITICO to discuss her thoughts on state education issues, and her vision for the future of NYSUT. — Katelyn Cordero NEW NYPA POWERS: The New York Power Authority will have broad new ability to build renewables and can compete for state contracts subsidized by ratepayers under an agreement in the state budget. The deal, reached over the weekend and expected to be included in the final budget set for approval this week, also moves up the date NYPA must plan to retire its fossil fuel plants by 2030 in a victory for advocates, according to details obtained by POLITICO. The authority had already aimed to decarbonize its power plants by 2035. The new role for NYPA in building renewables is a significant victory for socialist organizers and environmental groups who pushed for publicly owned new solar and wind to play a significant role in the state’s transition off fossil fuels. Gov. Kathy Hochul introduced a more limited measure as part of her budget but did not include the earlier retirement date or strong labor standards that will be included in the final measure, according to officials familiar with the agreement. — Marie French EDUCATION: Educators for Excellence, a teacher advocacy group, announced that Marielys Divanne will serve as executive director of the organization’s New York City chapter effective immediately. Divanne previously served as a senior advisor to then-Deputy Mayor for Strategic Initiatives Sheena Wright, who is now first deputy mayor. She is also the former vice president of education at United Way of New York City, a nonprofit organization that assists low-income New Yorkers. Her other roles include serving as the former lead organizer and executive director at a Metro IAF chapter in both Manhattan and the Southern Bronx. She also previously consulted with the SEIU 1199 to revamp their organizing and political teams. “The majority of educators say their curriculum is low-quality, and assessments in math and reading confirm as much, so I’m excited to join the fight for high quality instructional materials and aligned professional learning, at a time where our schools desperately need it,” she said in a statement. — Madina Touré HOUSING: The city and state are launching a $15 million initiative to fast-track the creation of 3,000 new carbon-neutral homes for low- and middle-income households, Mayor Eric Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul announced today. The effort, termed the “Future Housing Initiative” and funded through the state’s $6 billion Clean Energy Fund, will provide building owners and developers with as much as $10,000 per unit and up to $1.5 million per project to build all-electric multi-family buildings. The initiative “will help us reach our nation-leading climate goals, improve access to affordable housing in our communities, and build a healthier, greener New York for all,” Hochul said in a statement. New York has set a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 85 percent by 2050. — Janaki Chadha
| | — A class action suit settled Monday expanded dental coverage for the five million New Yorkers on Medicaid. (The New York Times) — It’s chaos for the Albany Empire, the National Arena League team based in Albany. (Times Union) — The NYPD is deploying a new tracking technology to put the kibosh on car thefts. (WNYC) — New York’s single-day gun buyback program brought in a record 3,067 this weekend. (New York Post) | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |  |
