[NYAPRS Enews] Spitzer: I Will Campaign Hard for My Budget Proposal

[Harvey Rosenthal]

What's in Spitzer's Budget 

Tax Breaks For Middle Class, Less For Health, More For Schools 

By Erik Kriss   Syracuse Post Standard   January 30, 2007

 

Eliot Spitzer has been talking about cutting taxes and health care
spending for months. 

 

Wednesday, the new governor will put his money actually, yours where his
mouth is. Spitzer will detail how he would provide $6 billion in
middle-class property tax relief over three years and cut an expected $1
billion-plus in health care spending in the 2007-08 budget he submits to
state legislators. 

 

Along with the cuts, there'll be spending increases, too. 

 

Spitzer is expected to propose about $8 billion more over four years in
school aid, including about $1.5 billion in the coming year, according
to government sources. 

 

He would tie big aid increases to contracts under which districts would
face consequences, including firing their superintendents, for poor
results. 

 

He wants longer school days and years, universal pre-kindergarten within
four years, smaller early-grade class sizes, more after-school
opportunities and better Internet libraries. 

 

In an education policy speech Monday, Spitzer said he wants to boost the
current state charter school cap to 250, from the current 100. He would
require charter schools to sign performance contracts and would provide
extra money to districts hardest hit by the loss of aid for students who
leave traditional public schools. 

 

Spitzer also said he will unveil a simplified school aid formula that
rejects the geographic political calculations of the past to drive more
money to needy students. He said he expects lawmakers to fight that
proposal. 

 

Spitzer has also pledged a big increase in aid for struggling cities,
including Syracuse, but only if they agree to better management and
efficiency. 

 

And he has proposed putting a $2 billion borrowing plan before state
voters for funding stem cell research. 

 

The budget Spitzer submits for the fiscal year that begins April 1 is
expected to top this year's $114 billion, but he has said he will slow
the recent rate of spending growth. 

 

The Legislature ultimately must approve the budget. 

 

Spitzer's property tax relief plan is really a $6 billion increase in
state spending under the School Tax Relief (STAR) program, which
subsidizes homeowners' school tax bills. 

 

Because the biggest benefits would go to middle-income homeowners in
high tax districts, residents of Upstate cities would get the most help,
his aides say. 

 

His budget proposal is expected to provide health insurance for the
state's half-million uninsured children by raising income eligibility
levels for the Child Health Plus program to 400 percent of the federal
poverty level, from the current 250 percent. 

 

He also wants to develop universal health insurance and make it easier
for New York's 900,000 uninsured but eligible adults to enroll in
Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor. 

 

He would spend more on combating obesity, childhood lead poisoning,
cervical and breast cancer and other public health threats. And he would
boost funding for managed long-term care programs and electronic health
records while maintaining benefits under Medicaid. 

 

But he would close and consolidate hospitals, use the state's bargaining
power to win discounts on prescription drugs and fight Medicaid fraud. 

 

He would freeze Medicaid rates paid to hospitals and nursing homes but
not to home care providers in an effort to discourage costly
institutionalization of patients. 

 

He also pledged to cut what he called waste from funding for graduate
medical education, which Syracuse's Upstate Medical Center and several
other local hospitals provide. 

 

"This is where you learn to say no, this is where you make triage
decisions, but it reflects the priorities and the tough choices,"
Spitzer said last week of his budget proposal. 

 

In a radio interview, the Democrat promised to speak out in support of
his plan, a break from the later years of his predecessor, Republican
George Pataki. 

 

"I will be a fervent advocate for what we have chosen to do," Spitzer
said on Albany's WROW-AM. "And I will be getting out across the state
speaking to citizens at every opportunity possible because I do not
believe once the budget presentation itself is done in Albany on
(Wednesday) that I will recede and leave it to others to debate it. 

 

"I will be there, part of that debate, leading it, standing on street
corners, sitting in editorial board rooms," he added. "I will be
approaching this like any campaign." 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://kilakwa.net/pipermail/nyaprs_kilakwa.net/attachments/20070130/fbb95e66/attachment.html>