ALBANY, N.Y. — The process of passing a state budget has some state lawmakers feeling lyrical and remembering the words of the Rolling Stones.
“It always reminds me of that Mick Jagger song,” State Assembly member Monica Wallace (D) said. “You can’t always get what you want, but you get what you need.”
The $237 billion budget passed Saturday, almost three weeks after it was originally due, came with victories that both Democrats and Republicans agreed upon. Some of the most significant bills provided tax breaks for housing developers, cracked down on illegal cannabis shops, and invested in education.
The State Senate and Assembly rejected an executive proposal by Gov. Kathy Hochul that aimed to eliminate Hold Harmless, keeping it a state requirement that school districts receive at least the same amount of funding they did the year before.
“The most important part was that we did restore Hold Harmless for schools,” Assembly member Angelo Morinello (R) said.
“We were able to raise education for K through 12 to historic levels for $36.2 billion,” Wallace added. “We’re investing in our future by educating the next generation.”
But the budget also came with what both sides in Western New York are calling losses when it comes to the $2.4 billion investment into the migrant population that aims to provide housing, legal services, and health care for the population overwhelming New York City.
“Our ancestors came in what we refer to as the front door, Ellis Island,” Morinello said. “Those coming in now from the southern border are not coming through the front door. … They seem to focus more on that in some parts of the budget than they did on our taxpayers and our citizens.”
Wallace added: “For me, the primary issue is it's not a state issue. It's a federal issue, and the federal government should be helping states offset those costs.”
The whole budget process reminded Western New York lawmakers like Wallace and Morinello that you can’t always get everything that you want.
But sometimes, in the end, you get what you need.
“The reality is that a budget is a compromise among all of the lawmakers,” Wallace said.
The budget will now go to Hochul’s office to be signed into law, which she is expected to do in the coming days.