ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10)--With the budget now over the finish line, the governor is focusing her sights on an issue that didn’t make it into the budget, housing.
"I had the conversations with the leaders about the time that they want now to let others digest the scale of the initiatives I proposed--- I put on the table that I believe are necessary. We need to go big. We need to be bold and ambitious," said Governor Kathy Hochul on Tuesday.
The governor originally proposed adding 800,000 new homes over the next decade, but an agreement couldn’t be reached during negotiations. She said this would help solve the affordability crisis.
"The conversations will start in earnest immediately. That will be one of my top priorities," explained Hochul. "I don’t know if it will be accomplished in a session, but while the legislators are here, it gives us a chance to have conversations and I will be looking towards having more initiatives certainly in my next budget."
Republican Senator, Jim Tedisco, explained what he thinks will come next.
"I think we have to work on all those pieces of legislation for the quality of life that we can help our individuals who want to build a house, get an education, build a business, find a job," said Tedisco. "We’re months behind right now because of the delay, so we have a lot to work on, I guess."
When asked if the legislative session would need be extended because of the late budget, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie told reporters as of now, he doesn’t see a need.
"We’ve come back to fast roll call, which I think will kinda speed up the clock a little bit," said Heastie. "And even during the days that we were supposed to be in session, we were either doing an extender or still passing bills that were on the calendar. So at this point, I don’t really see a need to extend the number of session days."
The last day of the legislative session is scheduled to be June 8th.
