No state budget this week, progress on 'pause,' Senate leader says

And Peanut the squirrel's owner visited the Capitol Tuesday.

Good afternoon — it’s Tuesday and National Empanada Day.

In today’s CapCon:

• The logjam to a state budget deal was not broken Tuesday. Lawmakers expect to pass at least one more extender.

• Here’s where talks stand on involuntary commitment, masks, revenue for the MTA, a new Foundation Aid formula and the unemployment insurance debt.

• The owner of Peanut, a social media famous squirrel who was euthanized by the state, was at the Capitol Tuesday.

• A bill to ban flavored nicotine pouches was pulled from the Assembly Health Committee at the last minute.

• New bills in response to Teslas being damaged and chatbots becoming therapists have been introduced.

Names in today’s CapCon: Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Carl E. Heastie, Kathy Hochul, Amy Paulin, Jake Blumencranz, Peanut, Mark Longo, Jessica Scarcella-Spanton, Mark Walczyk, Kirsten Gonzalez

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(Jim Franco/Times Union)

💰 There’s finally a revenue proposal for the MTA. It now heads to members

Happy one-week anniversary of the start of New York’s fiscal year. We do not yet have a state budget and one is not expected to come together this week.

“I really wish I could say we’re further along but I think we are stuck about where we were last week,” Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said Tuesday. “We are at the very beginning of the end with what I would label as a pause.”

Both Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie said Tuesday that discussions on policy items — old and new — are to blame.

“It seems that every day we have new policies being brought up,” Stewart-Cousins said. “Like I say, nature abhors a vacuum. Apparently budgets abhor vacuums as well.”

Lawmakers expect to approve another budget extender Thursday and head home until next week. Another extender is due a week from today.

There is some good news: Heastie, Stewart-Cousins and Gov. Kathy Hochul have coalesced around a proposal to raise new revenue to help fund the MTA’s $68 billion capital plan.