Nearly a month after its initial due date, New York state lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul have agreed to a $229 billion state spending plan that will make changes to a controversial bail law, boost direct aid to schools by billions of dollars and keep personal income tax rates the same.
"A conceptual agreement has been reached," Hochul said at a press conference Thursday evening.
The state budget will also increase the state's minimum wage in the coming years to $16 an hour in New York City and to $15 an hour north of Westchester County. After that it will be indexed to the rate of inflation.
Lawmakers and Hochul have also agreed to an expansion of charter schools in New York City by allowing for 14 so-called "zombie" licenses to be revived.
The child tax credit in New York is set to expand for families with children under the age of 4, addressing the expiration of a similar program on the federal level.
After initially discussing ways in which New York's system of publicly financed campaigns — in which political campaigns match individual donations with public money — on hold, lawmakers have agreed to fund the program without a delay.
Once given final passage in the Legislature, New York's budget this year will be one of the latest spending plans to be adopted since 2010. That year, lawmakers did not approve a final budget until mid-August.
This was Hochul's second budget since taking office in 2021 and her first since she won a full term last year. Hochul struggled to...
President Donald Trump falsely claimed that the stock market had “hit a new high” on Thursday, while the Dow plunged over three hundred points. Trump spoke to press while visiting the Lincoln Memo...