Assembly Action Highlights
The Week Ending March 16, 2007

Charles Carrier, Press Secretary

Assembly Advances 2007-08 Budget Plan

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Ways and Means Committee Chair Herman D. Farrell, Jr. announced the Assembly's approval of its 2007-08 budget that maintains the Assembly Majority's long-standing commitment to education, higher education, health care, health-insurance coverage for children, stem-cell research, property tax relief and local assistance aid for struggling localities.

Silver and Farrell said the $121.2 billion budget would provide necessary and long-overdue resources to our schools while at the same time helping communities hold the line on property taxes. It also builds on the goals advanced in Governor Eliot Spitzer's budget to reform our state's health-care system while making significant restorations to hospitals and nursing homes. The lawmakers noted that half of the increase in spending above the governor is dedicated to meeting critical health-care needs.

Highlights of the Assembly budget would eliminate the trend factor and the sick tax that severely impacts the health-care industry; address the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) decision that requires each child receive a sound, basic education; complete the Assembly's plan to provide statewide universal pre-K; significantly reform the state's charter school program; and expand the child care tax credit.

It also would continue the Assembly's long-standing commitment to college opportunity programs, which make the dream of a college education possible for thousands of students from working families; boost funding to Restore NY Communities Initiative; restore New York City participation in the state's revenue sharing program, beginning in the 2008-09 fiscal year; reject modifications to the prescription drug program; and join the governor in enhancing the STAR program. In addition, the Assembly budget plan provides $500 million for stem-cell research and a 15 percent increase to the Charitable Trust Foundation from the proceeds of a conversion of a not-for-profit health insurer to a for-profit entity.

Legislature Convenes Joint Budget Conference Committees

Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno convened the Joint Budget Conference Committees' following the passage of a budget plan by each house of the Legislature. Members of the Assembly and Senate met in open and public meetings to resolve differences between each house's respective budget bills in order to reach a bipartisan agreement by the budget deadline, March 31. The conference committees that met were Health; Education; Human Services and Labor; General Government and Local Assistance; Public Protection; Environment, Agriculture and Housing; Transportation; Economic Development; Mental Hygiene; Human Services and Labor. The Legislature is expected to resume the conference committee meetings next week.

Assembly Advances 'Sunshine Week' Government Reform Package

Silver and Governmental Operations Committee Chair RoAnn Destito announced the Assembly's passage of legislation to honor "Sunshine Week" that will strengthen the state's Open Meetings Law, increase government transparency and ensure compliance with Freedom of Information laws (FOIL).

"The Assembly has long been at the forefront of efforts to make government more open, accountable and responsive to the needs of New Yorkers," said Silver. To underscore that commitment, Silver pointed to the Assembly's success last year in enacting an expansion of the State Ethics Committee jurisdiction, in overhauling Assembly rules, as well as pushing for the use of more legislative conference committees and enacting public authority reform and procurement lobbying reform.

Silver credited Destito for her strong commitment to advancing comprehensive Freedom of Information Law reform measures as well as legislation to enhance the Open Meetings Law to ensure that the public has full access to the governmental decision-making process.

One of the bills (A.1111/Destito), already passed by the Assembly, would allow any meeting of a public body to be recorded, broadcast and photographed, provided that it is done in a way that is not disruptive to the meeting. Destito noted that technological advances make it possible to record the proceedings of a meeting without detracting from the deliberative process.

Another bill would strengthen compliance with FOIL by requiring each state agency that maintains a website to post information related to FOIL and the Personal Privacy Protection Law on its website. State agencies would be mandated to post, at the minimum, contact information for the persons from whom records of the agency may be obtained, the times and places the records are available for inspection and how files can be copied. The site must provide information about how records may be requested either in person or by mail and whether the agency accepts requests for records by e-mail (A.1689, Diaz).

The Assembly's "Sunshine Week" legislative package also includes measures that would mandate that subject-matter lists of records maintained by state agencies will be posted online (A.1975, Diaz, Jr.), and allow the public to copy the public documents maintained by the state Ethics Commission and the Legislative Ethics Committee (A.959, Desito). The bills were delivered to the Senate.

NYC Businessman And CUNY Law Professor Elected To New York State Board of Regents

Silver and Education Committee Chair Catherine Nolan and Higher Education Committee Chair Deborah Glick announced the election of Charles Bendit and Natalie Gomez-Velez as the two newest members of the 16-member panel of the New York State Regents. The Assembly and Senate, in a joint session of the Legislature, also re-elected Regents Jim Tallon and Milton Cofield to serve another five year term on the Board of Regents.

Bendit is a co-founder of Taconic Investment Partners LLC, a real estate firm, where he serves as co-chief executive officer. Gomez-Velez currently holds the position of professor of law at the City University of New York after serving as an instructor at New York University of Law. She also served as an assistant deputy attorney general for public advocacy for former New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Tallon, president of the United Hospital Fund of New York, is from Binghamton and served in the Assembly for 19 years. Cofield is a Fulbright scholar and a technology management professional.

Regents are responsible for the general supervision of all educational activities within the state, presiding over the State University of New York and the New York State Education Department.