The budget contains a handful of contentious policy changes on issues like bail, minimum wage and a ban on gas stoves and furnaces in new construction.
May 2, 2023, 10:58 p.m. ET
ALBANY, N.Y. — Minimum wage workers in New York City will get a pay bump for the first time in five years. Out-of-state students at city and state universities will face a tuition hike. And cigarette smokers will need to pay an extra dollar in taxes per pack.
New York State lawmakers approved a $229 billion state budget on Tuesday night that will touch on New Yorkers’ everyday life, after completing protracted negotiations with Gov. Kathy Hochul that delayed its passage by over a month.
This being Albany, of course, the closed-door negotiations centered much less on the state’s finances than they did on contentious policy changes that were stuffed into the final budget legislation.
Democrats, who control the triumvirate of power in the State Capitol, changed the state’s bail laws, passed new fines for unlicensed marijuana shops and enacted a ban on gas stoves and furnaces in new buildings, making New York the first state to pass such a measure.
Here’s what to know.
For the third time since 2019, New York amended its bail laws to make it easier for judges to hold people accused of crimes while they await trial.
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