Debate on housing causes budget delay

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — This week on Empire State Weekly, the deadline for the state budget was pushed back to the week of April 15. The state budget was over two weeks late after being extended four times.

Blair Horner the Executive Director for NYPIRG (New York Public Interest Research Group) and Rebecca Garrard the Deputy Executive Director for Citizen Action of New York discussed how housing played a part in the budget delays.

Horner explained that while he believes housing is a priority for many lawmakers, the budget may not be the best time to address it. "It's a complicated issue, it's not really budgetary per se, the tax benefits could be, depending on how the deal comes together, but like last year, last year's budget was a month late because the governor wanted issues dealing with criminal justice in the budget, and she held up the process to do that, and so a similar kind of thing is playing out this year."

The delay to the state budget impacted the calls for a crackdown on illegal marijuana shops. Assemblymember Anil Beephan Jr., a Republican representing Assembly District 105, explained that he believes the legal marijuana rollout is a "complete disaster" and that the Office of Cannabis Management needs additional resources to help address the problems.

"I think they need more staffing and I think they need more resources and a better public-facing customer relations point of view as well, if they had a more robust office I think we'd be in a much better place right now. as it stands there's a lot more questions than answers and a lot of that is coming out of Albany."

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