ALBANY POSTS

Quacking Over Lame

Duck’s Budget Efforts

Albany’s chances of getting the New York State Budget in on time are almost zero. Some are expecting the budget to come in as last as November.

“I’m not optimistic about it at all right now,” Paterson said a budget town hall meeting in Westchester County. The governor noted that the Legislature has not adopted any of it’s own budget resolutions and is having difficulty dealing with a $9 billion budget gap. “It’s going to have to be all cuts and they are having a hard time grappling with it,” he said

Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch attributed some of the delay to the ongoing political scandals engulfing Governor Paterson, “I think, in fairness, the Legislature hasn’t been in a hurry and the governor was unfortunately preoccupied with some other things for a couple of weeks” he told the Albany Times Union.

Paterson is under investigation for allegedly lying about his intention to pay for World Series tickets to the Commission on Public Integrity, and a conversation he had with a woman charging a gubernatorial aide with domestic violence.

Governor-in-the-Wings

Proposes Reforms

Lt. Governor Richard Ravitch has experience dealing with financial disasters. In 1975 he was appointed by governor Hugh Carey to head the New York State Urban Development Corporation, which was nearly insolvent when Ravitch took the helm. Ravitch is now proposing a set of rules for Albany similar to ones he set for the ailing public authority in the 1970s.

The lieutenant governor outlined plans to create a financial review board, and force the governor to submit five-year financial plans, while strongly regulating Albany’s habit of acquiring new debt. The five-member review board would be composed of private citizens, and would assess on a quarterly basis whether the state’s budget was balanced and the deficit was being sufficiently pruned.

Ravitch said all the new board’s members would be financial experts: the governor would name two, with the comptroller and the two legislative chambers each naming one member. Members would serve for five years and make their decisions by a majority vote.

Ravitch has also proposed setting the state’s fiscal year to June 1, rather than April 1, keeping it in line with other states.

“There really isn’t a big giveaway of the prerogative of the legislature other than committing to a GAAP-balanced budget within five years,” said Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Levy Flies

After Lazio

Former Long Island Congressman Rick Lazio has been campaigning for the GOP nomination for New York State governor for months. He has locked up endorsements from County Executives across the state, and has been endorsed by the very few Republicans who could have challenged him, such as Representative Peter King. But some Republicans are proposing running a Democrat, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, to run on the GOP line.

Lazio, a J.P. Morgan Chase lobbyist who lost a Senate race to Hillary Clinton in 2000, has all but locked up the nomination. Levy is barely known outside Suffolk county. But it seems Republicans are interested in Levy because they believe he can run a more credible campaign than Lazio. As of now, Lazio has total campaign funds of about $600,000. By contrast, Levy has a war chest of nearly $4 million, in a year when Republicans feel they have many chances for political pickups.

Lazio has fired back that Levy “shouldn’t pretend to be a Republican.” Despite a recent dip in polls, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo leads all potential challengers by more than 20 points in recent polls by Marist and Quinnipiac Colleges.