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ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Top New York state lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a budget deal late Sunday that includes a big bump in education funding, enhanced legislative ethics rules and several — but not all — of Cuomo's proposed education reforms.
The proposed $142 billion spending plan is expected to go to lawmakers for a final vote early this week following weeks of closed-door negotiations.
The agreement includes $23.5 billion in school aid, an increase of $1.4 billion, along with several changes sought by Cuomo including new rules for turning around failing schools, a new process for dismissing ineffective teachers and a plan for the State Education Department to revise teacher evaluations.
Several items initially included in the budget didn't make the final cut, but could be considered once lawmakers move past the budget.
"This is the largest school aid increase in seven, eight years," Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, D-Bronx, told reporters when he announced the deal. "We would have liked to see the minimum wage (increase). But outside of that I think this is a pretty good budget,"
Cuomo said the budget took on two of Albany's most longstanding impediments: public education bureaucracy and legislative ethics.
"With this agreement, we address intractable problems that have vexed our state for generations," he said in a joint statement on the agreement with Heastie and Republican Senate Leader Dean Skelos. "After decades of leading the nation in education spending but lagging in results, New York will set an example for all other states with a complete overhaul of the entrenched education bureaucracy."
Still, Cuomo was forced to either drop or modify many of his educational reforms. He had initially sought more aggressive changes to teacher evaluations, and had hoped to increase the number of authorized charter schools. The last proposal didn't make the final agreement.
United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said Sunday that his group will work closely with the State Education Department on the changes to evaluations and will continue its opposition to Cuomo's initiatives.
"We will still have many battles to fight," Mulgrew said.
The spending agreement also includes a requirement that lawmakers disclose their income from outside jobs. If they are attorneys they will also have to identify big clients, though certain sensitive types of cases including child custody and family law will be exempt. Also, lawmakers will have the option to ask the state's Office of the Court Administrator to keep private the names of clients who do not pose a conflict of interest. The names, however, would still have to be reported to the Court Administrator.
Other ethics-related changes include changes to prevent abuse of legislative stipends and new rules designed to prevent the personal use of campaign funds.
The budget includes Cuomo's proposed $1.5 billion upstate economic development competition, in which seven upstate regions will compete for three $500 million prizes.
The details of the budget plan are expected to be released Monday.
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