BY JIMMY LAWTON
North Country This Week

New York State's record-breaking $212 billion budget sends a lot of money to a lot of places that need funding, but Assemblyman Mark Walczyk, R-Watertown, questions the long-term impact of increasing spending by $36 billion in a single year.

Weeks before the budget passed, Gov. Andrew Cuomo warned of a $16 billion gap, then $5 billion in new revenues were found and the federal government bolstered state coffers to the tune of $28.5 million.

The end result?

New York lawmakers went into the budget season with a massive gap and increased overall spending by nearly 25 percent.

The budget includes a $29.5 billion injection aimed at making good on a judge’s ruling that school spending should be equitable and fair, though there is no guarantee that it will continue in years to come. It also moves massive funding to public and private green economy initiatives, invests in affordable broadband to assist low income families, and earmarks $1 billion toward small business assistance.

“Do I like anything in the budget? Of course. If a family goes out and maxes out three credit cards for Christmas, it’s going to be a good Christmas, but what’s that mean for the next three years?” said Walczyk.

SAM Grants

Walczyk said the budget contains loads of pork and pointed to State and Municipal (SAM) funding grants as one of the largest examples.

The budget sets aside $385 million in new funding for grants that are largely based on politics, according to Walczyk. That’s because funding isn’t distributed by need or overall interests of the state, but instead is allocated to members and districts based on political affiliation and seniority.

The members then choose which projects to fund and party leaders and the governor ultimately determine the fate of SAM grants.

Walczyk says SAM grants generally serve good purposes. They can help fund projects like salt barns, recreation centers and fire hall rehabilitations that might otherwise fall into disrepair.

But Walczyk says the funding tends to be disproportionate, with huge disparity between who gets what money based solely on seniority and party affiliation.

“Why would people in this senate district be valued less by the state simply because there are more senior members elsewhere? It’s inherently political,” he said.

Walczyk said the grants can often manipulate the relationships between reps and the people they represent.

“A town board member might be less likely to criticize a legislator when they are hoping to get funding for a program,” he said, adding that they have the potential to impact legislative races.

Bullet Aid

Another “pork” program is bullet aid, which is distributed to party members based on seniority and party affiliation rather than need. While Bullet Aid can be very helpful as it provides no-strings direct revenue boosts to schools or libraries, but Walczyk says the aid is again based more on politics than actual need.

He says Bullet Aid, like SAM grants, can and is put to good uses, but again it is funding assigned to members to use, not distributed equally or based on need.

Walczyk says this sets up the same dynamic as SAM grants between constituents and representatives. But he says when it comes to school aid, it can be viewed as a direct conflict with the Campaign for Fiscal Equality ruling. That ruling required the state to fund schools in a formalized equitable manner, something the state has failed completely at doing until this year, despite a 2007 court order.

Walczyk says that when schools are underfunded bullet aid undermines any concept of equitable funding.

General ‘Pork’

Walczyk said that aside from SAM grants and Bullet Aid, the record-high spending plan also contains pork spending for some more defined items like $4.6 million for the Buffalo Bills, $108 million for the Kingsbride Armory and even money to help with building improvements for a yacht club.

Walczyk said the budget contains even more ambiguous wording for which he was unable to even know where the lumps of money were going.

“Some of this stuff is not enumerated. You just see a price tag for a municipality or organization or non-profit and if you ask what it’s for they say we are still working on that,” he said.

The Budget

Walczyk said that while he is glad to see schools get a boost in aid, he is fearful it will be a temporary shot-in-the-arm rather than a permanent fix.

He said the runaway spending in this budget was exacerbated by a unique dynamic created by Cuomo’s impeachment investigation.

He said in a typical budget year, the governor presents a budget that comes in on the low end and trusts that some of the funding will be restored. This is often the case for things like school aid, which traditionally gets a major boost in the final budget.

“He’ll cut programs that he knows the legislators are going to restore. This year, you’ll see the governor’s cuts weren’t as deep, because he couldn't afford any more political hate,” said Walczyk.

Walczyk says that traditionally the legislative majority goes into a budget conversation trying to get as much as their members are asking for and “traditionally you have the governor and comptroller there to say, ‘let’s be realistic’.” But Walczyk said that didn't happen this year.

He said that Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie has the votes right now to impeach the governor if he wants to and having that dynamic going into the budget season stopped Cuomo from “being the adult in the room.”

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