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For Immediate Release: Tuesday, November 1st, 2005
Contact: Jordan Isenstadt (c) 516.991.3842 (w) 212.490.9535
(f) 212.490.2151
***Statement from Senator Liz Krueger***
STATE
SENATOR LIZ KRUEGER URGES CONSTITUENTS TO VOTE AGAINST BUDGET REFORM
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT
New York, NY – “I am a strong advocate of budget reform, but unfortunately, the proposed
constitutional amendment before the voters this election is a fundamentally
flawed approach to this issue. If passed it would have the potential to
create an incentive for the legislature to delay the budgetary process, and
establish a new, but equally problematic, imbalance of power between the
executive and legislative branches in determining the State Budget.”
”One problem that this amendment attempts to address is the inordinate power
the Governor currently has in the budget process, power that was increased
even more by a recent court decision. Through his executive budget, the
Governor has the power not only to propose spending levels, but can also
insert language that changes state policy. And while the constitution does
permit the legislature to alter the numbers, according to the courts, we are
not permitted to alter the policy-making language. This has the effect of
transferring huge amounts of legislative power to the executive branch, which
is a violation of the principal of separation of powers, and taken to its
extreme could effectively eliminate the legislature from the policy making
process entirely. The one power the courts have left to the legislature is
the power of delay – we can simply refuse to pass the governor’s budget. This
is hardly a desirable option, since late budgets have been a chronic problem
for our state, and have real consequences for localities, schools and
nonprofits that depend on the state for support.”
”Unfortunately, the solution to the concentration of power within the
executive offered by this amendment swings the pendulum too far the other
way, and creates a new incentive for late budgets. The most problematic
provisions deal with the adoption and amendment of a “contingency budget,”
which would go into effect automatically if the budget is not adopted by the
beginning of the fiscal year. Under the proposed constitutional amendment,
the power of the legislature would increase dramatically once the budget was
late, because we could effectively ignore the original executive budget, and
replace it with our own through amendments to the contingency budget. This
provision would create an incentive for the legislature to delay passage of
the budget until after the beginning of the fiscal year, since by doing so we
would dramatically increase our power in the budget process.”
”It is important to remember the history of New York’s budget process in
examining this proposed constitutional amendment. Our current budget process
emerged out of changes in the State Constitution made in the 1920’s that were
designed to strengthen the role of the executive. While the constitutional
changes made in the 1920s have had some negative –and perhaps unintended –
consequences, these changes addressed a real need for the development of a
centralized mechanism of developing agency budgets and ensuring that
expenditures and revenues matched.”
”There are important parts of the budget reform amendment that make sense,
such as moving the start of the fiscal year to May 1st, which will allow for
more accurate revenue projections, and creating an Independent Budget Office
to maintain the integrity of budget projections and increase the time for
public and legislative review of the executive budget. However the flaws in
the proposal outweigh these useful sections.”
”We will likely only get one chance to achieve real reform of the budget
process, and we need to get it right. That means finding a middle ground
between removing the legislature from the policy making process, as is now
the case based on the December 2004 court decision, and undermining the
Governor’s ability to develop a comprehensive spending plan for the state. We
should have a budget process that allows the Governor to propose the budget,
an independent review of the numbers, and a mechanism providing the
legislature an opportunity to review and change those proposals.”
”Fortunately, there is another option on the table, which better achieves an
appropriate balance between the Executive and the Legislative Branches. A
second proposed constitutional amendment (S.3195) would impose new
requirements on the Governor’s budget that would eliminate the problem of the
Governor inserting policy changes in budget bills, and also requires that
budget bills be clearly itemized so that the purpose of expenditures can be
easily determined. This bill, which I supported, is at an earlier stage in
the process, in that it must pass the legislature in two consecutive sessions
before appearing on the ballot for public approval, but I believe it is worth
the wait. Amending the Constitution is a serious matter, and it is better to
take the time to get it right, rather than making a change now that we will
have to revisit in a few years when it becomes clear we have simply exchanged
one dysfunctional process for another.”
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