By SAMANTHA GROSS
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Despite the itchy rise to prominence of bedbugs around New York City, officials have long been limited in what they could do to get negligent landlords to address the spread of the minuscule critters. On Tuesday, city officials announced a policy change that could leave landlords facing harsher penalties.

While the apple-seed-size bugs are not considered a medical threat, city officials will begin issuing Health Department abatement orders that carry stiffer possible penalties than the violations handed out by housing officials, the City Council and housing and health officials announced.

The change means that officials can lay out guidelines for the kind of pest control strategies landlords should adopt and can require landlords to treat the apartments surrounding the one with the infestation.

Landlords that don’t comply could be fined by the city’s Environmental Control Board and, if they don’t pay up, the city could ultimately take liens out on the properties that can be sold to collectors.

“We are going to be very explicit with landlords about what we expect them to do to eradicate bedbugs from their apartments,” said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. “This is going to help us identify which landlords are delinquent, neglectful, don’t really care if their tenants are getting bit up.”

The policy shift still won’t necessarily lead to immediate relief for residents facing a too-close encounter with the unwanted bedfellows. Officials hope it will increase pressure on landlords, but the inspection and enforcement process can be lengthy, and every day that an infestation continues increases the risk that the blood-sucking bugs will spread to another city location.

That’s a concern to city officials who have seen rising reports of the critters in movie theaters, hotels and clothing stores, worrying residents and even scaring off some of the visitors who make up the city’s $30 billion tourism industry. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said he’s concerned about the effect of the hysteria on the city’s reputation.

Despite those worries, city health officials say the bugs cause nothing more than anxiety, stress and itching. Since the city steps in to make emergency repairs only for housing problems they believe pose an immediate health threat, the only option for suffering residents with unresponsive landlords has been to take them to housing court.

Housing court allows tenants to confront their landlords directly, and moving enforcement outside of the court could make it more difficult for tenants to present their case, warned Legal Aid housing lawyer Ellen Davidson.

Tuesday’s rule change was announced along with the launch of a City Council-sponsored informational website meant to help city residents and visitors protect themselves from the bugs and identify and eradicate them if they do become a problem.

The city council is spending $500,000 on the website and other bedbug initiatives, including buying two bedbug-sniffing dogs and retraining the city’s housing inspectors in how to spot the tiny creatures. Recently, Quinn and other council members asked the federal government for more money to eradicate the bugs from public housing.

The bugs have become one of the most common reasons for calls to the city’s 311 information and complaint line, and the city’s housing agency found 4,808 bedbug violations in city apartments last fiscal year, up from 82 violations six years earlier.

Officials say the rise may be due in part to increased public awareness, but sightings of the bugs have increased nationwide in recent years. Experts have theorized that an increase in global travel and the banning of certain pesticides may be partly responsible for their spread.

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Online: http://www.nyc.gov/bedbugs

Human service providers and advocates are reacting with dismay and disappointment over the agreements announced yesterday in Albany for New York State’s budget for the FY2011-12 fiscal year beginning on April 1st.  Governor Andrew Cuomo succeeded in his pledge to close a $10 billion budget shortfall almost entirely by spending cuts. The legislature won only limited funding restorations, including $272 million in education and $91 million in human services.  The Governor and the State Senate resisted proposals by advocates and the Assembly to extend the existing “Millionaires Tax” surcharge for high income households which would have reduced the need for program and spending cuts by $1 billion this year and $5 billion in FY2012-13.

“The budget is insufficient to meet the continuing high levels of need in our communities,” said Allison Sesso, Deputy Executive Director of the Human Services Council of New York.  “It is that simple.”

“The state budget may be on time for the first time in many years, but that is where the good news ends,” said Jennifer March-Joly, Executive Director of Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York.  “Despite some progress in the area of juvenile justice, overall, the state budget deal is incredibly painful – it reduces or eliminates support for many essential child and family programs, shifts mandated program costs to localities, and dramatically reduces state support for education.  CCC is dismayed that state elected leaders failed to extend the temporary surcharge on the state’s highest earners and in doing so chose to resolve the state’s deficit on the backs of the most vulnerable, notably children.”

“This year’s budget will be extremely challenging for the human services sector,” said Ronald Soloway, Managing Director of Government and External Relations at UJA-Federation.  “While we recognize the need for fiscal constraint, our ability to help the poor and vulnerable will certainly be made more difficult by lack of resources.”

“We are glad that the State Legislature and Governor Cuomo agreed to some restorations to critical human services such as senior centers and the Summer Youth Employment Program and rejects the Executive’s misguided proposal to impose full family sanctions on public assistance recipients,” said Nancy Wackstein, Executive Director of United Neighborhood Houses (UNH).  “However, this budget still places too much of the burden of the State’s fiscal challenges on low-income communities and working families.  We are disappointed that this budget agreement will cut funding for after-school programs and housing support for homeless people while giving a tax cut to high-income New Yorkers.”

“In a very difficult budget year, the legislature and the governor worked hard to minimize the impact, but there will be program losses which will affect kids and families,” said Jim Purcell,  CEO of the Council of Family and Child Caring Agencies.  “We all realized that we were going to take some cuts.  We are grateful that they restored the funds they did.”

Components making up the $91 million in human service funding restorations included:

• State support for Committee on Special Education (CSE) placements – $34.6 million;
• Restoration of discretionary Title XX funding – $22.4 million;
• Summer Youth Employment Program – $15.5 million;
• A new program to serve homeless individuals and families in NYC – $15 million;
• Restoration of TANF Initiatives – $9.4 million;
• Preventive Programs – $8.7 million;
• Rejection of Full Family Sanctions – $7.4 million;
• Employment and Training Programs – $2.3 million;
• State Veteran’s Cemetary – $500,000.

These restorations were offset by a $9 million reduction to the Flexible Fund for Family Services and $15 million in other savings.

Despite the generally downhearted reaction to the overall budget agreement, advocates were grateful for those funding restorations that were provided.

The final budget restored approximately $22.4 million in Federal Title XX monies for use in funding senior centers, thereby avoiding the threatened closure of 105 senior centers operating under contract with New York City’s Department for the Aging (DFTA).   Governor Cuomo had proposed redirecting those funds in order to save State monies being spent on child welfare programs. “The Council of Senior Centers and Services (CSCS) would like to commend all of our elected leaders for fiercely working towards saving senior centers for 10,000 older New Yorkers,” said Igal Jellinek, Executive Director at CSCS.

The final budget also rejected the Governor’s proposal to create a Primary Prevention Incentive Program (PPIP) that would have collapsed funding for the Youth Development and Delinquency Prevention program (YDDP), Special Delinquency Prevention Program (SDPP), Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA) funding, Settlement Houses funding, as well as five other funding streams that are distributed to counties or directly to provider/community-based agencies.  An estimated $8.7 million of the almost $50 million in total cuts originally proposed for these programs was restored.

The restoration of $9.4 million in TANF Initiatives represents only 16% of current year funding levels, with many programs cut drastically and others eliminated entirely.  Advantage Afterschool, for example will see the TANF portion of its funding drop from $11.2 million to $500,000. Among those programs being eliminated are Green Jobs Corps, Health Care Jobs Program,  Career Pathways, Advanced Technology Training and Information Networking (ATTAIN); and more.

Homeless services advocates saw at least partial restoration of a funding cut which had threatened to end New York City’s rental subsidy program for people coming out of shelters.  “The details of this new subsidy remain to be seen but any new program must take into account the input by the people who administer it and the people it is designed to serve,” said Christy Parque, Executive Director of Homeless Services United. “Now that the state has anted up $15 million for housing subsidies for homeless people it is incumbent upon the Mayor to make a financial commitment to help homeless New Yorkers exit shelter via multiple permanent pathways into housing.”

The Supportive Housing for Families and Young Adults (SHFYA) and Supplemental Homeless Intervention Program (SHIP) also faced major reductions.  “We understand this is a tough budget year, but that’s no excuse to be penny-wise, pound foolish,” said Ted Houghton, Executive Director of the Supportive Housing Network of New York.  “Any savings achieved by cuts to supportive housing will be far outweighed by millions of dollars in new public spending, as formerly homeless families who are now stably housed and getting their lives back together will instead be forced to turn to expensive shelters, foster care and other unstable living situations.  Instead of spending $3,000 a year to help a family or a young adult become independent, we’ll be spending $36,000 a year to keep them in a shelter. By eliminating the Supported Housing for Families and Young Adults program, not funding SRO Support Services for over 1,800 new supportive housing units opening this year, and freezing the creation of new supportive housing for people with psychiatric disabilities, this budget turns back the clock to a time when we didn’t have any solutions to homelessness.”

One of the most vocal critics of the final budget agreement was, in fact, Mayor Bloomberg. “At the outset of the budget process, we urged the Governor and State Legislature to adopt a budget that treats New York City equitably and provides the mandate relief and reform that would allow us to absorb the State’s heavy cuts,” the Mayor said. “This budget agreement appears to fail on both counts, and worse, it passes heavy new costs down to the City.  Voters should remember that New York City was singled out by Albany and eliminated from the revenue sharing program, while other localities took no more than a three percent cut.”

The Mayor also confirmed fears that the State budget will only lead to still further cuts in his own upcoming Executive Budget proposal for FY2011-12 which begins on July 1.  “Make no mistake: the final budget still cuts New York City more than ever before. The restorations are merely a fraction of the $600 million necessary to avoid additional layoffs and cuts in the City’s budget – beyond what was announced in February – for the upcoming fiscal year,” he said.

For more detail on restorations in the final state budget, see reports by the Joint Legislative Conference Budget Subcommittees in the areas of Human Services, Mental Hygiene, Education and Higher Education. 

We have a budget agreement!  We just don’t know what is in it.  While Governor Andrew Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos met yesterday to announce that an overall agreement had been reached, many of the specific details were still being worked out.  As we pressed the send button on this E-Newsletter, the Joint Legislative Budget Conference Subcommittee on Human Services/Labor was in session.  Additional Subcomittee meetings on Education, Health, etc. were scheduled throughout the day.

The one thing that does appear clear from published reports is that high income households will be seeing their taxes go down when the current Personal Income Tax (PIT) surcharge expires.   Despite efforts by Assembly Speaker Silver and advocacy groups, the budget agreement apparently does not include an extension which could have avoided an estimated $1 billion in spending cuts this year and $5 billion next year.

Stay tuned for more details on specific human services-related budget decisions.

Elected officials joined with advocates, providers and clients on the steps of City Hall today to protest a devastating combination of service cuts proposed in both the State and City budgets.   Annabel Palma, Chair of the New York City Council’s Committee on General Welfare, and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio played a leading role in voicing concerns about cuts to child care, senior services, youth programs, housing and homelessness funding and more.

“The $300 million dollars in cuts to social services outlined in the Mayor’s budget are part of an unwavering assault on our City’s working families and most vulnerable,” said Palma.  “These cuts will directly and negatively impact the already-strained programs that a great number of New Yorkers have come to rely on for survival.  We cannot balance the budget on the backs of our most fragile with some of the most significant cuts to social services in our City’s history.”

“The administration’s proposed budget places far too great a burden on New York City’s most vulnerable,” said Public Advocate Bill de Blasio.  “These cuts would take away critical resources we need to protect our children and substantially reduce resources for the homeless at a time when struggling New Yorkers need more help than ever.  As our City recovers from the recession we should be providing the resources necessary to ensure all New Yorkers, even those at the bottom, have an opportunity to rise together.”

“Cuts to Human Services will create havoc in people’s lives,” said Michael Stoller, Executive Director of the Human Services Council (HSC).  “For instance, the proposed $192 million dollars in cuts to the Advantage housing subsidy will mean that thousands of families will have no viable path out of the shelter system and into permanent housing.  We can’t simply cut our way out of this budget crisis.”

“The Governor’s proposal to eliminate 19% of state funding for adult homeless shelters will severely jeopardize the almost 9,000 homeless single adults currently living in city shelters,” said Council Member Stephen Levin.  “At a time when New York City’s shelters are overwhelmed by unprecedented numbers of homeless individuals, this $15.7 million cut will further devastate the system. New York City needs the state to work with us to find real ways to quickly transition individuals into permanent housing and decrease recidivism rates in the shelter system. The state has a responsibility to continue to share responsibility for the shelter system and I call on Governor Cuomo to restore this funding.”

“Our City cannot afford to lose any child care slots or preventative slots,” stated Council Member Julissa Ferreras.  The City has proposed cutting more than 16,000 child care subsidies and 2,500 preventive service slots.  “Families are struggling; they are being forced to make hard decision that can put a child’s life in danger.  We need this funding restored so families can focus on strengthening their families rather than tearing them apart. The welfare of our children should not rest on just the families, this needs to be a partnership.”

“The elimination of over 900 day care slots from East New York is racist, punitive, unconscionable and unacceptable,” said Council Member Charles Barron.  “Cutting nearly $17 million from preventive and homemaking services is both a social and an economic injustice, particularly considering that our City’s most vulnerable families depend on these programs.  It’s time to cut the tax breaks for the rich and not balance the budget on the backs of working class families and their children.  Shame on you Mayor Bloomberg!”

“In failing to restore funding to the HIV/AIDS Services Administration, the Mayor’s Preliminary Budget risks cutting off essential supportive housing, medical and mental health services for some of the neediest New Yorkers,” said Council Member Gale Brewer.  “Cuts to case management funding would also overwhelm staff while violating legal requirements on case ratios and blocking access to needed services.”

NEW YORK — New York City sent letters to more than 15,000 individuals and families on Thursday warning them they could no longer expect the government rent subsidy that helped them move out of homeless shelters. Officials said they believed the cuts would force 4,400 families back into the shelter system.

The city blamed the move on proposed state budget cuts that are set to slice tens of millions of dollars from the program, but opponents accused the city of playing fast with the lives of its most vulnerable residents, canceling a program that has drawn mixed reviews, in a bid to spark pressure on state officials to restore the funds ahead of an April 1 budget deadline.

Told that she might lose the $1,000 monthly payment that’s keeping her and her 2-year-old son in their Bronx apartment, Lizmarie Rodriguez said she didn’t think she’d be able to pay her rent. She doesn’t want to go back to the shelters, where she spent nine months even though she had a job.

The 22-year-old felt unsafe there, she said, fending off vermin and bedbugs as she took care of her baby. Her Advantage-funded Bronx apartment, by comparison, is a haven, where she lets little Christopher ride a small tricycle in the unfurnished living room.

“What’s going to happen with us?” she asked Thursday. “I don’t know what we’re going to do. Where we’re going to go.”

The Coalition for the Homeless said it would sue in court to prevent the city from stopping payments for Rodriguez and the thousands of others who are already in the program, which provides rent subsidies for up to two years to homeless people who have secured jobs. Most of the participants work about 30 hours a week for about $9 an hour — not enough to cover their rents alone, said coalition spokesman Patrick Markee.

“It will be difficult, certainly for families, particularly those who recently left shelter, to maintain their apartments,” said city Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Seth Diamond. “The premise of the program is it gives people time to grow into their apartments and have their income grow and maintain stability. So that is very troubling and of great concern.”

While the clock for final budget negotiations between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Legislature is ticking down, proposals from both sides in Albany call for cuts to the program. The city says it stands to lose $92 million in state and federal money because of the cuts, and it expects the increased needs of the community served by the $140 million Advantage program to cost the city $34 million more than what it was already spending. The state disagrees with those numbers, and says the city would lose a combined $68 million in state and federal funds.

The city says it anticipates that without the program, the city’s homeless family population will increase by 51 percent and the city will have to build an additional 70 shelters. State and federal costs will rise as well, the city claims.

Cuomo spokesman Josh Vlasto argued that the city could afford to keep the program if it wished to.

“New York City seems intent on manufacturing a crisis and endangering thousands of New Yorkers to benefit its own economic and political interest. … Regardless of this year’s anticipated cuts, New York City has the funds to support the continuation of this program if it so chooses,” he said in a statement.

Diamond shot back: “The state is the one that has developed the crisis. … We had no choice but to take this action at this time.”

Advocates for the homeless have long found the Advantage program problematic, saying that it places people in apartments they won’t be able to afford in the long term and in some cases delivers participants right back into the shelters. While the Coalition for the Homeless is fighting to keep the city from cutting off payments to those already in apartments, Markee says getting rid of the program is the right thing to do.

“The Advantage program is a revolving door back into homelessness for thousands of children and families,” said Markee. “There have been (City) Council hearings, there have been studies: The program is not working.”

One out of three families that were in Advantage and then lost their rental assistance have applied for shelter, Markee said, noting that many participants don’t make it through the entire program. Meanwhile, the city calls the program a success and says 90 percent of families that complete two years in Advantage remain out of the shelter system one to two years after the program has ended.

Some advocates express concerns about the state of the buildings used in the Advantage program as well. Rodriguez’s apartment, for example, has been named one of the worst buildings in the city by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, with inspectors finding lead paint, crumbling plaster and, at times, no heat.

Without Advantage in place, the city will have no program to move families out of the shelters, and Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Linda Gibbs said there is no replacement program on the horizon.

“Without the state’s and federal support, we’ll have nothing for them,” she said. “So the only consequence is that there’s going to be a lot more homeless families and we’re going to need a lot more shelters.”

When 18 college students and Habitat for Humanity affiliates from across New York State gathered in Albany this week to urge Gov. Cuomo and State Legislators push for affordable housing policies, they erected an eight-foot door on the Empire State Concourse and gathered hundreds of supportive signatures on the door.

However, on Tuesday, when they went to deliver the signed door to Gov. Cuomo, it was not permitted past security and into the Capitol Building.  Yesterday after two days of negotiations among security officials, the Governor’s staff members and advocates, the door finally was allowed in and was delivered to Gov. Cuomo’s Office.

Habitat for Humanity advocates are asking Gov. Cuomo to:

• Increase funding for affordable housing
• Repeal vacancy decontrol and renew state rent laws
• Ensure that 10% of the state’s portion of the National Housing Trust Fund is allotted to affordable homeownership

The action was part of the annual Advocacy in Albany, a weeklong event sponsored by Habitat for Humanity of New York State, which represents 53 Habitat affiliates across the state. Throughout the week, college students learned how government works and met with elected officials to advocate for more funds and better affordable housing policies.

To launch the start of the third official NYC Green Carts season, the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund has released a collection of 26 recipes, inspired by the fruits and vegetables sold at NYC Green Carts. The NYC Green Cart Cookbook features contributions from famous NYC chefs, elected officials, community groups and Green Cart vendors. This Spring, 10,000 free cookbooks will be given away at NYC Green Carts and health-focused institutions across the City in an effort to promote healthy eating in New York neighborhoods.   Click here to download a free copy.

Founded in 2008, the NYC Green Cart Initiative was funded by a leadership grant from the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund in a public/private partnership with Mayor Bloomberg and the New York City Health Department. Green Carts are located in designated neighborhoods throughout the City as part of an effort to increase the availability of fresh fruits and vegetables in communities where access is limited.  Today, 461 Green Carts on the streets of New York have helped to set a new national standard for health promotion and economic opportunity by creating jobs and providing thousands of households with access to better food choices. 

“The Green Cart Cookbook is an inspiring showcase of New Yorkers who are working together to build healthy communities, as well as a part of our ongoing efforts to promote the carts and encourage families to cook at home with more fruits and vegetables,” said Laurie M. Tisch, president of the Fund.

“One of the ways to help New Yorkers eat more healthfully is to increase access to fruits and vegetables in the city,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, New York City Health Commissioner who submitted an introduction for the cookbook. “The NYC Green Carts program accomplishes this goal and we’re pleased to see the great reception New Yorkers have for it. The NYC Green Cart Cookbook builds on this success by offering creative ways to prepare fruits and vegetables.”

The NYC Green Cart Cookbook also includes a forward from Kirsten Gillibrand and recipes by chefs such as Tom Colicchio and Sisha Ortuzar of ‘wichcraft, Marcus Samuelsson of Red Rooster and Jonathan Waxman of Barbuto; celebrities such as Food Network host Ellie Krieger and news anchor Rosanna Scotto; students from the Food and Finance High School; Green Cart partners Karp Resources and Montefiore Medical Center; and Green Cart vendors such as Mohammed Ali, who has his cart stationed in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Gloria Lima, who vends in Bushwick.

Advocates and providers are finding a number of important things to be pleased about in the “one-house” budget bills likely to be voted on today in Albany by the Assembly and Senate. They also see some significant disappointments.  Legislative positions on a number of key issues remain unclear as advocates continue to comb through the complex series of budget documents. With passage of these bills, the real negotiations between both houses – and, most importantly, Governor Cuomo — begin.

Both houses are rejecting Governor Andrew Cuomo’s plans to divert federal Title XX funding away from senior centers and to collapse several discrete children’s and youth services programs into a single Primary Prevention Incentive Program.   Each house has also proposed their own set of funding restorations.  At the same time, however, many of the Governor’s cuts to important programs were proposed for only partial restorations – or none at all – by one or both of the legislative bodies.  Particularly hard hit have been employment and training related programs.  Extremely troubling to advocates is the Senate’s proposal not only to defer planned increase in public assistance grants, but to impose an 11% cut from current levels.

“This is a positive sign,” said Bobbie Sackman, Director of Public Policy for the Council of Senior Centers and Services, regarding the moves by both houses to restore use of Title XX funding for senior centers.  Governor Cuomo’s proposal to re-direct these funds tot child welfare services, thereby saving State dollars, had led New York City’s Department for the Aging to plan for the closing of 105 senior centers serving 10,000 seniors.  “We are hopeful that a full restoration will be agreed to by Governor Cuomo and included in the final enacted budget.”

“We are certainly pleased that both houses have come out against the Primary Prevention Incentive Program (PPIP),” said Sanjiv Rao, Director of the New York State Afterschool Network (NYSAN).  The Governor’s PPIP proposal would have eliminated discrete funding for the Youth Development and Delinquency Prevention program (YDDP), Special Delinquency Prevention Program (SDPP), Runaway and Homeless Youth Act (RHYA) funding, Settlement Houses funding, as well as five other funding streams that are distributed to counties or directly to provider/community-based agencies – and reduced total funding by more than 50%. “Not only would this have been a huge cut, it would have been very problematic by mixing funding streams that really do not belong together in a single block grant,” said Rao.

The Assembly is now proposing discrete funding for nine programs:

• Home Visiting – $17.5 million;
• Community Optional Preventive Services (COPS) – $16.2 million;
• YDDP/SDPP – $14.2 million;
• Runaway and Homeless Youth – $2.4 million;
• Kinship – $339,000;
• Settlement House Initiative – $451,000;
• Hoyt Children & Family Trust -  $829,000;
• Post Placement Services – $312,000;, and,
• Caseload Reduction – $1 million.

The Senate’s proposed restorations for these programs are believed to be at lower levels.

The Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), which had been eliminated in the Governor’s Executive Budget, receives a $15.5 million allocation in the Assembly bill and a $10 million allocation in the Senate. “We appreciate the restorations staked out by the Assembly and the Senate,” says Anthony Ng, Director of Policy and Advocacy at United Neighborhood Houses. “However, it is important to remember that two years ago, the Summer Youth Employment Program was funded at $35 million.”

Advantage Afterschool would receive a $5.5 million restoration via TANF funding in the Senate bill – bringing total funding to $22.7 million.   The Assembly, however, maintains the program at the Governor’s proposed level of $17.25 million.

Advocates expressed disappointment about the legislature’s failure to restore funding for employment and workforce development programs. “Overall, we are concerned that so many of the jobs programs have been zeroed out or substantially cut,” said Bich Ha Pham, Director of Policy Advocacy and Research at the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies. “The Green Jobs Corp and Healthcare Jobs Program have both been zeroed out.”   Also eliminated was the Transitional Jobs Program.  The Wage Subsidy program has been eliminated in both the Governor’s budget and Senate proposals, while proposed for only $5.2 million by the Assembly – down from $14 million FY2009-10.

“At a time when over one million New Yorkers are unemployed or underemployed, the State should be putting more funds into jobs programs, not less,” said Pham, who went on to emphasize the importance of many of these programs for the state’s growing numbers of disconnected youth.”

Advocates also criticized the Senate’s proposal to reduce Public Assistance grant levels by 11%.  “This proposal would further reduce family income levels, which are already substantially below the federal poverty level,” says FPWA’s Bich Ha Pham. “Given the great recession, it is hard to believe the Senate would propose such a measure.”

Approval of these two budget bills in the legislature will set the stage for full-fledged negotiations between both houses and the Governor.  The Assembly’s bill, including its proposed funding restorations, relies on revenues to be obtained by extension of a “Millionaires Tax” which would continue an income tax surcharge on high income households.  Governor Cuomo has repeatedly expressed his opposition to this or any other tax proposals.