State’s Lawmaking Process: Built to Dodge Accountability

New York’s legislative process is objectively one of the most dysfunctional in the nation. A recent report from the Times Union (TU) effectively illustrated this point by noting New York is one of only 12 states that does not require public fiscal analysis on all legislation likely to impact revenue and expenditures. Making matters worse, lawmakers here introduce more bills each year than any other state legislature in the U.S. This perfect storm has bred an economically toxic environment in which hundreds of bills are being considered by lawmakers who have no idea how much the included policies will cost.

The impact of this negligence cannot be overstated. For example, the “fiscal implications” section of the state’s all-encompassing Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which unofficial estimates project will cost more than $600 billion to meet emissions and energy standards, simply reads: “To be determined.” If you want to know how much it’s going to cost for every school district in the state to purchase an entire fleet of electric school buses, a figure unofficially expected to be as much as $15 billion, you’d be disappointed to know that information isn’t available from the bill’s sponsors. Also noted in the TU report, the proposal to move New York into a single-payer health care system—potentially impacting one-fifth of the entire state’s economy—“doesn’t have a real fiscal note.”

The inadequacies of the process extend well into the budget process, too. Often, lawmakers are expected to vote on fiscal policies included in the state’s spending plan without having a final figure to consider during roll call. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s executive budget proposal calls for $260 billion in spending. Every cent should be accounted for before anyone is expected to sign off on such an enormous bill. Yet, despite repeated calls from policy experts, lawmakers and reform advocates, changes to the broken process continue to be blocked.

Among the proposals we’ve faced pushback on include a bill sponsored by Assemblyman Ed Ra, our Conference’s ranking member on the Ways and Means Committee, to create a nonpartisan “Office of Policy Research and Fiscal Analysis” (A.4532) to keep sitting members of the Legislature better informed about the fiscal impact of proposed legislation. Additionally, Assemblyman Ra sponsored a bill (A.3940, Ra) to require the governor to provide final budget estimates no later than one day prior to voting on the aid to localities, state operations or capital projects budget bills.

My appropriation reform bill (A.6337) would create an advisory committee to vet lump-sum expenditures. Assemblymembers Josh Jensen (A.4301), Robert Smullen (A.8877) and Joe DeStefano (A.7795) have similar proposals to provide greater transparency protections for local governments and utility ratepayers. These are simple fixes that call for an honest, transparent assessment of how much of your money the state is going to spend.

There is no good reason to keep the true impact of these consequential policies a secret. To do so undermines democracy and erodes the public’s trust. No one in their right mind would run a household budget or business this way, yet our state government does it casually. Until this systemic problem is fixed, New Yorkers will continue to watch their tax dollars fund failed programs and wasteful policies.