ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — This week on Empire State Weekly, with the state budget finalized for fiscal year 2025, several key issues of the Hochul administration focused on were funded. Ahead of the lawmakers' return to the Capitol, several reacted to the items passed in the spending plan. State Budget Director Blake Washington explained the [...]
ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — This week on Empire State Weekly, with the state budget finalized for fiscal year 2025, several key issues of the Hochul administration focused on were funded. Ahead of the lawmakers' return to the Capitol, several reacted to the items passed in the spending plan.
State Budget Director Blake Washington explained the impact the enacted budget had.
"Did we get everything that could possibly be done everything that the legislature requested? No. but on balance, I think we checked a lot of the boxes… From everything from enhancement of the child tax credit to also to the things that we didn't do that's raising taxes on ordinary New Yorkers on our businesses allowing our businesses to continue and thrive and build out post-pandemic so sometimes the things we didn't do are just as important as the things we did do and we're just delighted to have delivered on that," said Washington.
State Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt, also reacted to the budget passage. He explained that he was largely disappointed with the budget including the investments made in education funding.
"You look at our cost per student. You look at what we spend in totality, and you look at some of our education outcomes, including graduation rates, test scores, college readiness, all those kinds of things, you can't say we can't look at how we're spending money and trying to make sure we're spending money more appropriately, more efficiently, which we have not done," said Ortt.
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