Hochul to boost migrant spending to more than $2B
Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed a $233 billion budget that doesn’t include any broad based tax increases.
ALBANY, N.Y. — The migrant crisis could cost New York taxpayers more than $2 billion under a proposal in Gov. Kathy Hochul’s $233 billion budget released on Tuesday.
Hochul proposed spending $2.4 billion to address the ongoing migrant crisis, which would come on top of the $1.9 billion the state has spent in the last year.
The money is expected to go toward National Guard deployment, short-term shelter services and relief centers at state-funded housing sites that include Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, Randall’s Island and Floyd Bennett Field.
The state will also continue to provide “humanitarian aid” for New York City, which has seen an influx of more than 160,000 migrants in the last several years. Mayor Eric Adams, who will also release a budget plan for the city on Tuesday, has pressed for additional state and federal aid to address the flow of migrants.
New York lawmakers and Hochul last year previously agreed to a $1.1 billion spending plan for migrants, but costs nearly doubled as officials opened more shelter facilities.
State spending would increase 4.5 percent to $136 billion.
The plan would also close up to five prisons in the state, continuing a decade-long trend of shuttering correctional facilities as the people of incarcerated people continues to drop.
Hochul’s budget does not include any broad-based increases in the personal income tax, the main driver of the state’s revenue.
But her proposal does include a new tax on vacation rentals as well as a per day New York City Convention Center hotel fee of $1.50 per unit.
Spending under the state’s costly Medicaid program would increase by 10.9 percent, a reflection of higher-than-expected enrollment in the program.
Hochul wants to increase education spending by $825 million, and $507 million would be direct aid to the state’s nearly 700 districts. That’s a smaller amount than in prior years, but comes after years of record spending increases.
A larger fight could be over changing the complicated formula for how schools are funded in New York. Any change would likely impact wealthier school districts in the state, many of which are in the New York City suburbs.
Hochul also proposed extending mayoral control of the city schools for another four years, but some lawmakers have already balked at a long extension for Adams.
To be on time, the budget will need to pass by April 1, the start of New York’s fiscal year. But spending plans can often go past that deadline. Hochul and state lawmakers did not agree to a budget last year until May 3.
The budget fills a $4.3 billion budget gap, but gaps in future budget years — totaling about $20 billion over three years — remain.