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In today’s CapCon:
State comptroller candidates who’ve criticized the incumbents’ state pension fund investments have also held the ICE-linked stocks they now criticize.
Here’s what else we learned from the newly released enacted state budget financial plan, including billions more in revenue than previously projected.
Early voting starts Saturday. Here are five final races for state Senate and Assembly to watch in this month’s primaries.
This Week in New York History: Nazis caught off Long Island and Fort Hamilton.
Names in today’s CapCon: Kathy Hochul, Raj Goyle, Drew Warshaw, Thomas P. DiNapoli, Donald J. Trump, Jeremy Zellner, Jonathan Rivera, Sean Ryan, Tim Kennedy, Marc Poloncarz, Erik Dilan, Marin Dilan, Christian Celeste Tate, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Jumaane Williams, Grace Lee, Illapa Sairitupac, Zohran Mamdani, Jasmine Sanchez, Nydia Velazquez, Lilah Mejia, Harvey Epstein, Wei-Li Tjong, John Liu, Mariama James, Inez Dickens, Jacky Wong, Eddie Gibbs, Tamika Mapp, William Smith, Robert Rodriguez, Diana Ayala, Gale Brewer, Sandy Nurse, Lincoln Restler, Alexa Aviles, Chi Osse, Jim Franco, Micah Lasher, Eli Northrup, Gustavo Rivera, Gabriella Romero, Latrice Walker, Stephanie Ruskay, Julie Menin, Brad Hoylman-Sigal, Mark Levine, Carl Wilson, Lindsey Boylan, Erik Bottcher
(Will Waldron/Times Union)
💵 What else we learned from the newly released financial plan for the state budget
Two weeks after the state Legislature approved this year’s state budget, the state Division of Budget dropped the financial plan tied to that legislation on Wednesday.
The main takeaway was easy to spot. While Hochul and lawmakers had valued this year’s state budget at $268 billion, the financial plan put the all-funds number at $277 billion instead. That reflects federal Medicaid payments that weren’t factored into the previous number.
But that’s not all that we learned from the financial plan. It included other details related to state spending and revenue that differ from what Hochul proposed in January as well.
It also included an update on the state’s outyear budget gaps, which are larger as a result of the enacted budget than what Hochul had projected in January. That’s a result, in part, of recurring spending items included in this year’s final budget.
Here’s how those budget gaps have changed compared to what Hochul’s proposed financial plan included in January.
Fiscal Year 2028: $6.4 billion, up from $6 billion.
Fiscal Year 2029: $10.5 billion, up from $9 billion.
Fiscal Year 2030: $14.7 billion, up from $12.5 billion.
That’s a cumulative increase over those three years of $3.8 billion. It’s driven by items like permanent public pension enhancements, changes to the state’s school aid formula and increased aid to localities.
It’s a structural deficit; tax receipts are expected to grow 2.9% on average through FY 2030 while state operating funds spending is projected to increase by 5.4% in that time.
But overall revenue is also projected much higher in the financial plan for the enacted budget than what was released alongside Hochul’s proposed budget in January.
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