State Budget

New York State Nurses Association condemns FMAP contingency plan

Latham, August 4, 2010 – The New York State Nurses Association condemns the legislature’s decision to pass the FMAP contingency plan. This plan, intended to offset a possible loss of Federal Medicaid Assistance Percentage funding, will ultimately lead to unsustainable cuts to Medicaid and vital state-sponsored health programs.

“Medicaid and other state-funded health services should not be used as a stop-gap for the state’s fiscal woes,” said Tina Gerardi, MS, RN, CAE, Nurses Association CEO. “Should Congress fail to extend the FMAP enhancement, we ask the legislature to consider the health of New York’s citizens and pass the sugar-sweetened beverage tax instead.”

The New York State Nurses Association is the voice for nursing in the Empire State. With more than 36,000 members, it is the state’s largest professional association and largest union for registered nurses. It supports nurses and nursing practice through education, research, legislative advocacy, and collective bargaining.

Contact: Erin Silk, 518.782.9400, ext 224

125 Days Late, a State Budget with New Taxes

by Danny Hakim

ALBANY — Lawmakers completed one of the latest budgets in New York State history on Tuesday night, passing a last piece of legislation that will raise an additional $1 billion — in part by increasing taxes on the sale of clothing and on a variety of businesses.

The state will increase its share of revenue from video gambling machines and will allow a number of casinos to stay open later. Lawmakers also voted to reduce charitable deductions for those who make $10 million or more.

But lawmakers rejected a plan to enact a tax change on earnings by hedge fund managers who work in New York but live outside the state. Much of their compensation comes in performance incentives that are considered capital gains and are taxed federally at 15 percent. The change would have made these earnings “ordinary” income, subject to New York State taxes.

The move came as hedge funds were being wooed to move out of the state.

A vote in the State Senate took place just before 8:30 p.m., ending months of contentious negotiations, with the budget 125 days late. The Assembly had earlier approved the budget, which is projected to be $136.5 billion. Spending will increase by 2.4 percent over the previous budget.

Lawmakers had been passing the budget in pieces for several months, amid a stalemate with Gov. David A. Paterson.

Democrats, who control the Legislature, feared the indignity of passing the latest budget ever in an election year. The record was set in 2004, when the budget passed on Aug. 11.

The last piece of the budget passed on a party-line vote, 32 to 28, with the Senate’s tenuous Democratic majority holding together and no Republicans voting in favor of the measure. Although the Legislature passed a spending plan several weeks ago, it had been at loggerheads with the governor on devising a way to pay for the final part of the budget.

“Today the Senate completed the final stages of a fair and responsible budget that works for New Yorkers,” Austin Shafran, a spokesman for the Senate Democrats, said in a statement.

Surprisingly, there was almost no debate on the measure, but Senator Dean G. Skelos, the Republican leader, signaled what are sure to be campaign themes for his party in the fall.

“Today, Senate Democrats finished voting on a budget that raises taxes by nearly $4 billion,” Mr. Skelos said in a statement, referring to his tally of the total amount of taxes approved in the last few months. “Today’s action also completes one of the latest budgets in state history. What did taxpayers get as a result? They got higher spending and more taxes, but not a single initiative to create any new jobs or improve New York’s economy.”

The legislation will eliminate a sales tax exemption on clothing and footwear purchases of less than $110 starting on Oct. 1. That was by far the largest piece of the bill passed Tuesday night; it is expected to raise about $330 million.

The legislation also expands tax breaks for film production companies and requires online travel companies to collect sales taxes on hotel rooms.

The governor, through a spokesman, hailed the passage of the budget.

“Today the state finalized a budget that closes a $9.2 billion budget gap,” said Morgan Hook, Mr. Paterson’s communications director. “This was done primarily through spending cuts and with no borrowing.”

“A fiscally responsible budget,” Mr. Hook added, “will help our state turn the corner on this economic crisis and put us on a path to recovery.”

A number of other significant measures passed on Tuesday. Lawmakers approved a plan to raise more than $1 billion through uniform, across-the-board cuts to state programs, should Congress fail to approve an increase in Medicaid financing this year. Legislators had long resisted approving the plan, but the governor had insisted on it as it became increasingly uncertain that Congress would increase the financing.

Lawmakers also passed a controversial measure requiring that prisoners be counted as residents not of the mostly upstate prisons where they reside, but of the areas where they lived before they were incarcerated. This effort had been fiercely resisted by Republicans, because of the implications the move could have as legislative districts are redrawn by the Legislature.

Democrats had championed the measure. “This is an issue of fundamental fairness, and it will empower poor communities because their population will reflect those prisoners,” said Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, a Manhattan Democrat running for attorney general. “If other states follow us, it would represent a major shift of political power back to these poor urban communities.”

One notable measure that failed to pass was a bill that would have given the state university system far more autonomy to set its own tuition rates. The plan was being pushed by the chancellor, Nancy L. Zimpher, as a way to help turn around the ailing system.

But Democratic leaders pulled the bill twice after it was clear both times that it would not pass.

Layoff Threat Looms Anew

by Casey Seiler

ALBANY — As the Legislature prepares to return to Albany, Gov. David Paterson issued some of his toughest words yet for lawmakers and another group he’s been at odds with for months: state worker unions.

“I think the planning for layoffs is going to have to begin immediately,” Paterson told reporters Monday morning after throwing out the first pitch at a tee-ball championship in Lincoln Park.

Elaborating on comments made last week by state Budget Director Robert Megna, Paterson said the move was necessary because of unions’ ongoing resistance to granting concessions that would trim $250 million from the work force budget.

Last week, Megna said the number of layoffs and the timetable for implementing them will depend on the results of an early retirement option designed to cull the public employee rolls.

“I don’t know what the date would be that we would have to have layoffs,” Paterson said, “but since the work force would not negotiate a lag period, which would have been a shared sacrifice for everybody, or a furlough, which would have been a process where everyone gave a little so everyone could stay working, some unfortunate people who don’t deserve it are going to get laid off.

“And it burns me to have to say it, because I don’t think it’s fair to them. But it’s the only way we’re going to be able to balance our budget,” Paterson said.

The furlough plan, which Paterson forced past the Legislature in an emergency budget extender, was struck down by a federal judge two months ago.

Paterson said last year’s “memo of understanding,” or MOU, between his administration and the powerful state workers unions PEF and CSEA — guaranteeing no layoffs through 2010 in exchange for labor support of the now-instituted Tier V pension package — was “a plan” that was going to have to be adjusted along with the state’s fiscal outlook.

“I sat down and worked out an agreement with the unions a year ago, but that presumed that we would get greater stimulus money from Medicaid. We lost what may be a billion dollars from that source, and everybody is going to have to make a sacrifice,” he said.

“Everybody finds a way that someone else should make the sacrifice, and that they shouldn’t,” he said. “And I don’t think that’s a very good culture, or the spirit of New York. It’s not the way New Yorkers addressed this problem 80 years ago.”

In a response statement, CSEA President Danny Donohue insisted that the MOU was a binding agreement. Also, “talk of layoffs under these circumstances is counterproductive, impractical and bad for New Yorkers all around,” he said. “They may also constitute bad-faith bargaining.”

PEF President Kenneth Brynien said it was “unconscionable for the governor to continue scapegoating state employees and their families for the fiscal crisis, or use them as pawns in his negotiations with the Legislature.”

Brynien said the governor would be better off ordering agency heads to make the retirement incentive available to as many workers as possible. When a similar incentive was offered last year, it fell short of its target number — in part because agencies were reluctant to give up the positions that would be eliminated after the worker’s retirement.

Paterson spokeswoman Jessica Bassett said that the Budget Division was currently receiving final plans for the incentive program — including the specific titles of those slated to get it — from the individual agencies.

She said the administration was encouraging the agencies to be “aggressive.”

All told, the state hopes to lose between 3,000 and 6,000 workers this year through the incentive, although retirements from the judiciary and SUNY won’t be complete until the end of 2010, Bassett said.

State workers can take a degree of comfort from the fact that Paterson had equally hard words for lawmakers.

“The type of budget the Legislature is proposing will put us back in the hole,” said the governor, whose agenda for Wednesday’s extraordinary session includes many of his original revenue proposals — including a tax on sugary beverages and the introduction of wine sales in grocery stores — that lawmakers have shown little appetite for. Also on Paterson’s agenda: a contingency plan for the possible loss of Medicaid funds, and a plan to revise tuition-setting power for some SUNY and CUNY campuses.

While the governor can compel lawmakers to come to Albany for the extraordinary session, they can gavel in and out without taking up any of his proposals. Paterson was asked if he would look at the Legislature’s refusal to even accept his revenue bills as a slap in the face.

“I think it’s already a slap in the face — but it’s not personal,” he said. “It’s not my face they’re slapping. It’s the faces of the people of the state of New York.”

The current plan is to hold a session at 6 p.m. Wednesday, with a Thursday session to follow if sufficient progress isn’t made. Paterson said he wanted to see the results of those sessions before deciding whether or not to call both houses back for additional ones.

Paterson met Monday afternoon in New York City with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson. Emerging from that meeting, the governor said he wouldn’t comment on the Legislature’s alternative proposals until his staff analyzes them.

Statement of PEF President Kenneth Brynien on Paterson’s threat of layoffs

Albany – It is unconscionable for the governor to continue scapegoating state employees and their families for the fiscal crisis or use them as pawns in his negotiations with the Legislature.

The governor was irresponsible in his remarks at an event today to suggest the possibility of layoffs within the state work force when it is still unclear how many state employees will leave state service through the early retirement incentive (ERI).

The governor also once again suggested he is not bound by the no layoffs agreement he made with the Public Employees Federation (PEF). This time, Paterson claims he can no longer comply with his no-layoffs pledge because of the lack of federal stimulus funding. PEF fully intends to hold the governor to his promise and will take whatever measures are necessary to do so.

We would hope that before the governor determines layoffs are inevitable, he would press his agency heads to allow as many workers as possible to leave through the incentive. The Paterson administration failed miserably in implementing the voluntary severance program offered last year, as hundreds of PEF members who were willing to leave state service were denied the opportunity to participate in the program.

Now, it appears the governor is giving up on the early retirement incentive as well, instead of using his authority to direct agency heads to fully comply with the ERI.
It is disingenuous to limit participation in the ERI while claiming layoffs are necessary. We call on the governor to focus on making the ERI program a success, rather than planning for failure.

In addition, PEF reminds the governor of the millions the state could save by relying less on high-priced consultants, when research proves state employees can often do the same work for less. One step in the direction of realizing recurring savings is passage of the cost-benefit analysis bill. The bill has already passed in the Assembly. It would require a cost-benefit analysis before contracting out state services. PEF is calling on the Senate to stop taxpayer abuse and pass the cost-benefit bill.

PEF is the state’s second-largest state-employee union, representing 58,000 professional, scientific and technical employees.

Statement of PEF President Kenneth Brynien on renewed threat of layoffs

FOR RELEASE: Thursday, July 22, 2010

Albany – It is irresponsible for the Paterson administration to suggest the possibility of layoffs within the state
workforce when it is still unclear how many state employees will be leaving state service through the early
retirement incentive (ERI).

The director of the state Divison of Budget (DOB) is quoted in the press suggesting the early retirement
program may fail to reach a savings goal of $250 million and if that is the case, plans for layoffs may have to
be developed. Before deeming the ERI a failure, the DOB should, instead, be pressuring its agency directors to
fully comply with the program.

As was the case with the voluntary severance program offered earlier this year, many PEF members who were
willing to leave state service were denied the opportunity to participate in the program. We anticipate the same
will hold true for the ERI.

It’s unnecessary and irresponsible to threaten to layoff state employees at a time when so many people are
turning to state services during these difficult financial times. We call on the Paterson administration to focus
on making the ERI program a success, rather than planning for failure.

In addition, PEF reminds the governor of the millions the state could save by relying less on high-priced
consultants when research proves state employees can often do the same work for less. One step in the
direction of realizing recurring savings is passage of the cost-benefit analysis bill. The bill has already passed
in the Assembly. It would require a cost-benefit analysis before contracting out state services. PEF is calling
on the Senate to stop taypayer abuse and pass the cost-benefit bill.

PEF is the state’s second-largest state-employee union, representing 58,000 professional, scientific and
technical employees.

Megna: Layoff planning starts next month

A top Paterson administration official said Wednesday that planning to lay off state workers — needed to realize $250 million in workforce savings counted in the budget — will begin in earnest next month.

“We have, as you know, an early retirement program that we’re working through with state agencies,” Budget Director Bob Megna said in an interview with New York Now to be aired Friday.

“I don’t think we can get to the $250 million just through the early retirement program, but I think we want to see where we are with that program over the next week, 10 days, where we think savings are,” Megna said. “And then after that, I think we need to sit down with the governor … and decide if we need to take further actions, including layoffs.”

Paterson has attempted to lag pay for state workers and furlough employees one day a week in order to achieve his savings. He also asked employees to forgo a scheduled raise earlier this year. All the proposal were rebuffed by unions representing public employees, and the furlough attempt was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge.

The unions have argued that concessions required by the governor unfairly abrogate their existing collective bargaining agreements, and have proposed finding workforce savings by replacing outside consultants with unionized employees. They also claim Paterson is bound by a pledge to not lay off workers until 2011, an agreement forged when unions acquiesced to the creation of a new, less-generous pension tier for new employees.

Paterson originally said he would wait until the first of the year to lay off workers, but later said he felt it would unfairly “kick the can” to the next governor were he to do so. Paterson is not seeking another term in office. Megna said that planning now was necessary given the “complicated” nature of planning for layoffs.

“It’s not something where you can say, ‘oh, I’m going to lay off people tomorrow,’ and then make it happen,” he said. “It’s a lengthy process, so it is a process that would certainly, in all likelihood, extend into the next governor’s administration, so I think you have to take it very seriously and very careful.”

Veto puts big hole in school budget

Forces Buffalo system to pay $11 million more

By Tom Precious
News Albany Bureau
Published: July 09, 2010

ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson issued yet another veto Thursday to prevent what he called a legislative end run to increase state spending on public schools.

But the fiscal fallout from the governor’s action includes blowing a $11 million hole in the Buffalo Public Schools budget, which could force another 200 layoffs in the system.

The governor previously vetoed $419 million in state funding for 700 school districts. But, the administration said Thursday, a separate bill approved by the Legislature contained a one- sentence provision that, in effect, would undermine the school aid veto.

Paterson called the provision a “poison pill,” saying legislators tried to “achieve through the back door” what they could not get through the vetoed bill.

The governor added that he felt legally compelled to veto the entire 45-page bill, not just the single, objectionable provision.

The result? While he claims his action saves money for the state, it sharply increases expenses for some schools systems — especially Buffalo.

For Buffalo Public Schools, the issue involves how much, per pupil, the school system must pay charter schools attended by youngsters from the system. Last year, the state froze those payments to help systems like Buffalo, and the freeze was to remain in effect this year.

But by vetoing the entire bill, Paterson undid that agreement.

As a result, Buffalo schools face an additional $11 million in expenses for the coming school year. Statewide, school districts will have to pay charters an additional $70 million.

“This is problematic,” Buffalo School Superintendent James A. Williams said.

With his budget already adopted and 400 layoffs planned, Williams said the additional charter school payments could cost another 200 jobs.

“And it’s July, and we’ve got to open school in August,” he added. “We can’t operate public schools with all these uncertainties.”

In his latest veto, issued a day after the delivery of nearly 6,700 other vetoes totaling about $700 million in spending, Paterson acknowledged spiking a number of “worthwhile” programs, including a number that had been in the budget he proposed in January. These included continuing the freeze on charter school payments.

But the governor, a Democrat, said the Legislature, controlled by his own party, had forced his hand.

“In essence, the Legislature has presented me with a Hobson’s choice: veto this legislation despite the positive aspects it contains or accept the irresponsible spending it compels, and agree thereby that New York State have a budget that is out of balance from the outset.”

Austin Shafran, a spokesman for Democrats who control the Senate, said the veto “jeopardizes jobs and our school children with the typical Albany power play.”

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, declined to comment.

David Albert, a spokesman for the New York State School Boards Association, said Paterson’s earlier veto of $419 million in school spending already prevented those funds from going out the door.

“I think you can make the argument that the veto is unnecessary because the money is not there,” he said. But he said a number of programs will face “serious ramifications.”

While the governor sought to sound fiscally tough, the veto will provide more spending for some schools. It cancels a freeze that had prevented districts from updating certain data — such as enrollment — on which state funding is based. As a result, the state will have to pay out $100 million more than anticipated.

Though he insists otherwise, the governor appears to be setting the stage for more budget talks, along with resolution of some nonfiscal matters that were not resolved at the end of session. These include including a new financing arrangement being pushed by the University at Buffalo.

The Senate is considering a return next week to adopt the last budget bill — a $1.5 billion revenue-raising measure.

tprecious@buffnews.com

NYSUT presses to save teacher center funding

NYSUT Media Relations – July 7, 2010

ALBANY, N.Y. July 7, 2010 — New York State United Teachers today said it would continue to relentlessly press state legislators to fund the state’s Teacher Centers, saying that shutting down the state’s most effective program for training teachers “makes no sense.”

NYSUT President Richard C. Iannuzzi said $35 million in funding for Teacher Centers, which provide professional development and training to teachers across the state, is not included in the state spending plan on which the Legislature agreed.

The state’s 130 Teacher Centers are being counted on by the State Education Department and local school districts to support educators in using new standards, curricula and assessments; strengthen teaching in the lowest-performing schools; train teachers to more effectively use data, and to help implement the new teacher principal and evaluation system.

“It makes no sense to pass a sweeping and innovative law to improve teacher effectiveness and, just weeks later, eliminate all the funding for a highly acclaimed program that provides professional training to teachers,” Iannuzzi said.

NYSUT Executive Vice President Andrew Pallotta said NYSUT is pressing the Legislature to find the funding to keep Teacher Centers open. “We will be doing everything in our power to ensure the Teacher Center network remains viable,” he said.

NYSUT Vice President Maria Neira said Teacher Centers, over the last 25 years, have built strong private-public partnerships with Intel, Microsoft, Verizon and other major corporations and foundations.

“These private-public partnerships help to improve teaching and raise student achievement, and also lower taxpayers’ burden by bringing tens of millions of dollars in private investment into school districts,” Neira said. “Corporate contributions from Intel, Verizon, Microsoft and others to Teacher Centers more than double the state’s $35 million investment in teacher training and are the kind of dollar-for-dollar partnerships the state should be leveraging, not discouraging with senseless cuts.”

Neira noted that, in the business world, the most successful corporations recognize the importance of investing in the professional growth of their workers, including keeping them up to speed with the latest developments in technology and other fields.

“Even in the midst of a prolonged recession, New York must continue to invest in the professional growth of its teachers, especially as it embarks on major education reform initiatives. To effectively shut off the professional training offered by Teacher Centers at this critical juncture is short-sighted and counterproductive,” Neira said.

NYSUT, the state’s largest union, represents more than 600,000 teachers, school-related professionals, academic and professional faculty in higher education, professionals in education and health care and retirees. NYSUT is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association and the AFL-CIO.

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Editors, reporters: For a list of Teacher Centers and their leaders in your communities, call 518-213-6000.

State’s emergency spending bill OK’d by Senate, 34-27

by Tom Precious

ALBANY — With just hours to go before a threatened shutdown of state government, three Senate Republicans broke with their colleagues Monday to join Democrats in approving an emergency spending bill to keep agencies open and funding available for everything from nonprofit programs to unemployment checks.

The game of chicken, however, could be repeated in just one week unless talks to resolve the much-delayed state budget for the current year gain more steam in coming days.

Behind closed doors, a tentative deal has been reached to close part of the projected $9.2 billion deficit by collecting taxes on cigarettes sold by Indian retailers. That decades-old conflict between the state and tribes, has been led largely by the Seneca Nation of Indians, the country’s biggest tax-free cigarette sellers.

Lawmakers face pressure to come up with new revenues to limit cuts to popular spending programs. Legislative leaders are trying incorporate as much as $100 million from collecting the tax on sales by reservation business to non- Indians, government officials told The Buffalo News. The current plan calls for issuing coupons to Indians to buy cigarettes tax-free, but requiring wholesalers to place tax stamps on all other cigarettes distributed to Indian retailers.

It would be at least the third attempt in the past 10 years or so to try to collect the taxes, which Seneca leaders say would be an illegal move because of centuries-old treaty rights.

Officials are eyeing starting collections as soon as Sept. 1, while imposing a broader $1-per-pack cigarette tax increase across the state to bring in another $200 million.

Passage of the $14 billion emergency spending bill averted the state government shutdown, which Gov. David A. Paterson had warned would have begun this morning. The measure largely covers human services and mental health programs.

Its fate became somewhat cloudy when two Democrats in the State Senate, where the party holds a 32-30 majority, threatened to vote “no,” depriving it of the 32 votes needed for passage. In the end, the bill passed 34-27, with three GOP lawmakers joining 31 Democratic senators.

“To not pass this extender would drive New York into a state of chaos,” said Sen. Hugh T. Farley, a Schenectady Republican who joined Democrats. Farley faces a serious contest for re-election in November in a district with tens of thousands of state workers.

Two other Republicans — State Sens. Roy J. McDonald of Saratoga County and Charles J. Fuschillo Jr. of Merrick on Long Island — also voted for the bill; all Republican senators from Western New York all opposed it.

Statewide, all Democrats in the State Senate — except Ruben Diaz Sr. of the Bronx — backed it.

To try to win Diaz’s support, negotiators had included $188 million in a program that provides an array of services to low-income people, an $18 million increase over what Paterson proposed.

Still, Diaz voted against it because it cuts social programs used extensively in his district heavily populated with poor people.

“Hey, listen to me ladies and gentlemen, I’m not voting for cuts today and not next week,” Diaz told his colleagues during a floor debate.

Diaz bristled at his fellow Democrats. “I’m only one vote, so don’t put that on me,” he said of suggestions by Democrats that he was abandoning them and forcing them to rely on Republicans or face a government shutdown.

The Assembly, where Democrats hold a wide margin, approved it, 87-49.

The measure was the 11th weekly emergency spending bill since the state’s fiscal year began April 1 without a annual budget. In all, those weekly bills already have included nearly $80 billion in spending for the current year — almost 60 percent of what officials believe will be a final budget amount of about $135 billion.

Senate Democrats say the emergency bills have closed $1.1 billion of the $9.2 billion spending gap, meaning an increasingly shrinking portion of the budget will have to deal with the remaining red ink.

With all members of the Legislature up for re-election, increasingly thorny issues remain undecided. They include funding for the state’s 700 public school districts and whether to raise taxes and and borrow extensively to offset cuts needed to close a $9.2 billion budget the deficit.

The new bill saves about $325 million in various mental health and human services programs. But it also will be expensive for local governments, mainly counties, because of what Senate Democratic aides described as about $100 million in various cost-shifts from the state to localities, such as payments for juvenile justice programs. That, Republicans say, will hit property taxpayers and local services.

To lure votes, Paterson backed down from including collection of the cigarette tax in the measure adopted Monday. Republicans had vowed to vote against any emergency bill with tax increases.

With Diaz and Farley threatening not to vote for another emergency bill next week, Paterson faces several choices: reach a full budget deal so an emergency bill is not needed, make the next “extender” bill non-controversial by avoiding cuts so Democrats can count on Diaz’s vote or shape it in a way to keep luring some Republicans to vote for it.

Legislative leaders insist a broader deal is close. , but Paterson told a handful of reporters in his office Sunday night that the sides are “very far” apart, and that lawmakers are boasting of progress to put pressure on him to propose emergency bills that are easier to pass.

Legislators cannot change the governor’s emergency measures; they can only vote them up or down.

If legislators fail to approve the emergency bills — which they cannot amend — the state cannot spend money.

“We are moving closer and closer on an overall budget plan,” said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver after emerging from a private meeting with Paterson and Senate Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson. Still, he said the sides were at least $1.3 billion apart in closing the $9.2 billion gap — a difference Paterson has put more at $2 billion apart.

Democrats portrayed Republicans as taking the government to the brink of closure. But Republicans noted the state — run by a Democratic governor and Democratic Legislature — has been without a budget since April 1, forcing the state to delay funding for schools, not-for-profits and road contractors.

“Government has been closed down, maybe not for everybody, but for a substantial number of people in the state of New York,” said Sen. John A. DeFrancisco, a Syracuse-area Republican.

Democrats in the Senate insisted they don’t like the emergency budget route, but have little choice with no broader budget deal at hand and the alternative being to close down the government.

“We are moving closer and closer on an overall budget plan,” said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver after emerging from a private meeting with Paterson and Senate Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson. Still, he said the sides were at least $1.3 billion apart in closing the $9.2 billion gap Ô a difference Paterson has put more at $2 billion apart.

Democrats portrayed Republicans as taking the government to the brink of closure. But Republicans noted the state … run by a Democratic governor and Democratic Legislature … has been without a budget since April 1, forcing the state to delay funding for schools, not-for-profits and road contractors.

“Government has been closed down, maybe not for everybody, but for a substantial number of people in the state of New York,” said Sen. John DeFrancisco, a Syracuse-area Republican.

Democrats in the Senate insisted they don’t like the emergency budget route, but have little choice with no broader budget deal at hand and the alternative being to close down the government.

“You can’t afford to shut government down,” said Sen. William T. Stachowski, a Lake View Democrat. “No matter what we have to deal with, it’s worse to shut it down.”

Statement of PEF President Kenneth Brynien on Comptroller DiNapoli’s commitment to the state’s pension fund

Albany -The New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) applauds and supports state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s stand on protecting the state’s pension fund.

Comptroller DiNapoli has proven himself a tenacious defender of the fund and we have full faith and confidence in his ability to continue to protect the fund.

New York State’s pension fund is one of the few pension funds in the country that has remained fully funded during the economic downturn. The comptroller’s commitment to protect the fund from political tampering is one of the reasons the fund hasn’t slipped, the way many other public pension funds have.

PEF is the state’s second-largest state-employee union, representing 58,000 professional, scientific and
technical employees.