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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Happy Friday, everybody. Does this sound familiar? The New York State fiscal year begins on April 1st, but the budget to fund state services will be late because lawmakers can't agree on housing, education, and criminal justice reforms. Yes, we might've said those exact words last year on this date or something very close, and here we are again. Now Governor Hochul and legislative leaders have announced that they are resigned to at least a three-day delay as they continue to wrestle with this year's version of those topics.

Because we all have short memories, here's what the news website New York Focus reported when they finally completed the process last year. They wrote, "The budget will change bail laws and could signal to judges that they should jail more defendants pretrial, but the changes are less sweeping than what Hochul had proposed." 14 new charter schools will be allowed to open in New York City, a sixth, as many as the governor originally sought.

Meanwhile, the governor's signature agenda item for last year, an ambitious plan to boost housing construction across New York completely disintegrated. That was last year's outcome as described by New York Focus. This year, the contentious criminal justice reform item is how to fight retail theft, shoplifting, and assault of retail workers. The education reform is a sweeping change to how the state fund schools at all. Many districts are up in arms about potential cuts, we'll explain. On housing, let's just say landlords are looking for more legal ways to raise rents.

Tenants are looking for new limits on rent hikes, and everyone wants more affordable housing construction, but they can't figure out the rules. Everyone is concerned about affordability and the character of their neighborhoods. Here's what North Hempstead town supervisor Jennifer DeSena said, as negotiations collapsed in March of last year.

Jennifer DeSena: We call on all New Yorkers to stand with us in demanding that single-family zones remain intact.

Brian Lehrer: Can we have it all? Is there a path to yes on retail theft prevention, fair funding of rich and poor school districts, and affordable housing that the existing neighborhoods actually like? With us now, WNYC, Albany Reporter, Jon Campbell. Hi, Jon. Your portfolio is bursting. Thanks for coming on the show.

Jon Campbell: Thanks for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Can we start with housing and that quote from last year from the Hempstead Town supervisor, are they basically having the same debate this year about density versus neighborhood character?

Jon Campbell: Yes and no. The big difference between this year and last year is last year Governor Hochul wanted to essentially mandate that local governments create new housing. If they didn't, they could essentially face penalties. This year, she's taking what she says is the carrot approach. She wants to make $500 million or so of existing state grants available only to local governments that commit to creating more housing. It's a significant difference, and it's one that the legislature might be more inclined to go along with. Really the two big housing debates going on right now are about a tax break for New York City developers known as 421 A that expired a couple of years ago.

She wants to re-up that, and the legislature's really pushing for more tenant protections what we've come to know as Good Cause Eviction.

Brian Lehrer: Is this just a city versus suburbs debate as it's sometimes framed, or is it more complicated than that? I hear from people in Brownstone, Brooklyn, and other places who might welcome lower-income neighbors, but who don't want the physical feel of their neighborhoods to become more highrise with shadows and block views and things like that. They say, "Look what happened to Williamsburg with its market rate towers. "Those are market rate mostly, but not only did they make the neighborhood less affordable, in that case, they made it uglier. At the level of the state legislature, is it as simple as city versus suburbs?

Jon Campbell: It's not as simple as city versus suburbs. There are certainly some inner-city debates as well. There's what's known as the floor area ratio cap, that's something that's being debated, and that's something that's a longstanding rule that limits residential buildings to 12 times the size of the lot. Some people argue it has led to the proliferation of the pencil towers that you see popping up in Brooklyn and Manhattan. There's some debate about whether to get rid of that and that would allow for wider buildings, it would allow for taller buildings on smaller lots.

That's one of these issues that has been baked inside of this. There's a lot of what some people would call nimbyism not in my backyard, which is exactly what you just laid out there, that people want affordable housing, but they worry that it might change the character of their neighborhood, et cetera. That is not limited to the suburbs, although that is a major issue in the suburbs.

Brian Lehrer: Last year, Hochul tried to force a lot of new construction with mandates, and it wasn't surprising really, the towns didn't want that dictated by Albany. This year I see it might be more through incentives. Can you name some of those incentives that might get a place like North Hempstead to see it in their interest to build affordable housing?

Jon Campbell: Yes, absolutely. It's $500 million in different grants and programs and breaks, incentives, et cetera, that the governor wants to make it so in order to be eligible for those, you would have to be what's called a quote pro-housing community. There's different ways you can do that. You can show that you have created more housing in recent years. You can implement policies that show that you're committed to boosting your housing stock in the near future. One of the examples is it's called the Downtown Revitalization initiative.

It's been a very popular program first created under Andrew Cuomo, It makes $10 million grants available to local governments that want to improve their downtown corridor.

Under Hochul's plan, if you want to be eligible for that, you have to commit to being a pro-housing community.

Brian Lehrer: Even in the suburbs, even on Long Island-- I'm very fond of Long Island. I grew up near Long Island, but in Queens, I have relatives and friends my whole life all over Long Island. There are places that do this. I have had friends in Mineola, for example, in [unintelligible 00:07:24] for example, where I have taken the Long Island Railroad to the local stop, and then I walk to the apartment buildings that they live in that are built specifically to be walking distance from the railroad for people who want to commute into Manhattan.

They don't appear, in my experience, to my eye, to interfere with the private homes, which of course, people value their private homes with yards and the open space. That's why a lot of people move to the suburbs, but both things can exist if it's done right.

Jon Campbell: The really dramatic suburban pushback you saw was more limited to last year. There's still some amount of it this year, but it is not nearly in the force that it was last year, which is why talks now have more shifted away from that and more toward tenant protections and making sure that tenants in existing housing can have more protections against eviction. That is something that the legislature is pushing very hard for. It looks like we're coming close to a deal where maybe they trade that for this tax break for New York City developers that expired a couple of years ago.

Brian Lehrer: You tantalizingly suggest in your Gothamist article that maybe just maybe tenant and landlord groups will strike a compromise that allows landlords to raise the rent more after renovations or when there are vacancies in rent-stabilized apartments, but that also protects current tenants more than they're protected now, can you describe what's in the works?

Jon Campbell: That's all baked into these many layers of these housing talks. One of the things that is being discussed and credit to my colleague David Brand, who I wrote that article with, he did the heavy lifting on this part. There are strict rules about when landlords rent-regulated apartments can increase rent after doing significant renovations. They've been pushing for changes to that system that would allow them to increase the rent when they do renovations to say vacant apartments or rent-regulated apartments that have sat vacant. That is something that we saw David had realized was in the works here.

Seeing that maybe there's a push to allowing that on some level. At the same time, there's this separate layer happening, which is what we've called the Good Cause Eviction protections, what we know is the Good Cause Eviction protections, and that is, Democratic lawmakers in the state legislature, a portion of them, I shouldn't say all of them, are pushing for a measure that would only allow landlords of all apartments, not just rent-regulated, to evict a tenant if they have Good cause. Something like non-payment of rent, or if they cause significant damage to the building or things of that nature. Part of the negotiations that are happening on that are, what would be considered a reasonable rent increase from year to year?

There's a portion of that measure, the Good Cause Eviction measure that would effectively cap rent increases. It would make a rebuttable presumption in housing court that if say, your landlord hikes your rent by 20%, that would be beyond what's reasonable. You could argue that they're effectively evicting you, maybe you get that rent increase taking down. There are debates and negotiations going on now about what that percentage might be for a reasonable rent increase.

Brian Lehrer: That would add rent stabilization-ish for every rental apartment in New York State. The numbers I saw on that-- we've done separate segments on this, but the numbers I've seen on that are actually, to my eye, relatively generous to the landlords on how much they can raise the rent, rarely 20% in one year, like the example you were just citing, but actually, in some cases, yes. Because I think, correct me if I'm wrong, three times the rate of inflation, and so we have 3% inflation now around, so they could raise it 9% in a year. That's a lot.

Two years ago, we had 9% inflation in the United States, presumably something similar in New York, so they could have raised the rent 27%. Is that what's actually in there?

Jon Campbell: Close. What's in the actual bill right now, which almost certainly will not be what is in any sort of final housing deal, is a 3% increase from year to year, or 1½ times the rate of inflation, whichever is larger.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, 1½times the rate of inflation?

Jon Campbell: Yes. That is exactly what's subject to negotiation right now, and almost certainly, would be higher than that. Because Governor Hochul, quite frankly, has been hesitant to support this measure. She has chosen to focus more on supply than the current tenant protections. Governor Hochul is almost certainly pushing for something higher there, and that is exactly what's subject to negotiation right now.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Here's another way to look at it, in a text message from a listener who writes, "A lack of affordable housing is a symptom of the bigger problem, which is the lack of a living wage for every full-time worker." That's a really interesting comment, Jon, right? Because we could look at the lack of affordable housing as not enough housing, so supply doesn't meet demand, so that of course pushes up the price for things in a market system. Or we could look at the demand side if you want to call it that, which is putting more money in enough people's pockets that they can afford the rents that are out there.

Jon Campbell: If I were Governor Hochul in the State Legislature, and thank goodness I am not, but if I were, I think I would point to last year's budget when they actually did increase the minimum wage and tied future increases to the rate of inflation. They have looked at issues like that in the past. Another thing to note here, too, is the tax break that I've referenced a few times for New York City developers who commit to including a certain number of affordable units in their New York City housing developments.

The big thing that's being debated right now on that front is wages for union workers on those construction jobs. There is the side negotiations happening between the Real Estate Board of New York, which is the big real estate lobby in Albany, and New York City. A number of building trades unions, the carpenters, the welders. The Mason tenders already struck a side deal there, and they are trying to hammer out an agreement for how much these union workers would be paid, how their pay would be calculated on jobs that qualify for that tax credit. There are various aspects of this where they are looking at wages for workers. That's all backed into this.

Brian Lehrer: To afford to live in the buildings that they're building. I have to say, Jon, that one blew my mind when I read it, and I learned about it from you in your Gothamist article. The concept that Hochul is trying to leave some housing construction negotiations, not to lawmakers, but to developers and construction unions trying to work things out. Labor negotiations can get lawmakers to yes on new affordable housing, as opposed to political negotiations?

Jon Campbell: Yes. It's not totally unheard of. We saw Governor Cuomo when he needed some cuts to Medicaid, he punted some of those to the unions and the hospital providers, and they made a committee that came up with cuts that were palatable to them. This is a similar kind of idea, which is, the developers want this tax break, which had long been criticized by some as a giveaway to developers and something that perhaps didn't create the number of affordable units that it purported to, or was not as effective in creating affordable units.

They're trying to make changes to that. One of the big things is they brought the labor to the table to-- labor had a lot of issues with how their pay was calculated. It was done on an average basis, so then if there were discrepancies about whether they were meeting the terms of the tax break in terms of union pay. It was difficult to figure out how to prove that. They're negotiating, essentially a wage floor and how to calculate what unions will be paid, and how to enforce it, if these developers are part of the program here, if they decide to take advantage of this tax break.

She basically said, "Hey, unions and revenue, the Real Estate Board, you guys figure this out. You guys can do something that works for both of you and then we'll present it to the legislature." So far, they've been at an impasse for months now, and they can't quite get that over the finish line, and that is complicating the entire budget, quite frankly.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners who has a question or a comment or some on-air lobbying for that matter, on any policy in play right now, as the budget negotiations for New York State this year are in the homestretch. For the ears of any state legislators who might be listening right now, and we know some of them do, or for our Albany reporter, Jon Campbell, who is briefing us on where things stand on a number of major issues, 212-433-WNYC, call or text, 212-433-9692. We've been talking about these housing policy items so far.

We're going to get on to criminal justice reform, retail theft in particular. This might even relate politically to Donald Trump deciding to show up yesterday at the funeral for slain police officer Jonathan Diller and the New York State political overtones and implications, and really purpose of that on the part of the former president. We will get to that. We will get to education funding, and how the governor is trying to change the formula in a way that may impact families for better or worse. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, call or text.

I mentioned before walking from Long Island railroad stations to visit friends who lived in apartment buildings in the little downtowns of Mineola and Wantagh were the two examples I gave. I know there are others on the island. Bill in Mineola is calling in. Bill, you are on WNYC. Hi.

Bill: Yes. Good morning, Brian. What they've done in Mineola, presently they've added over 1,000 apartments in the downtown area. They are far from affordable. The studios are $2,500 a month. There are plans to bring those apartments to around 1,400 to 1,500 in that area. They are also giving zoning variances and buffing the neighborhood. From where I sit on the next block, they removed two older houses, 1920, 1930, the shoehorned three in, and those are going on the market for $1.3 to $1.5 million. I want to also mention that the county seat, the hospital, and the railroad have 100 year plus head start of serving this community. However, they're turning this into downtown Great Neck, and I believe the ultimate plan is to eventually displace all the residents and turn it into a high-end area.

Brian Lehrer: Bill, let me leave it there and get some reaction. You put a lot on the table. Jon, I don't know how familiar you are with Mineola, but he raises a number of things there. One, just because housing construction of apartment buildings takes place near the railroad station and makes a little downtown, that doesn't mean they're going to be affordable unless there's some law that requires them to make it affordable. He talks about the high rents that they're already charging there.

I guess the story that he told about two old houses being replaced by three smaller ones on the same lots but near the railroad station going for so much money. I guess proximity to the Long Island Railroad, meaning you don't have to drive there is a selling point and increases property values. Then when he talks about turning all of Mineola, there's so many blocks and blocks and blocks and blocks of private homes. They can't turn all of Mineola into a city. You hear the tension that he's expressing that I'm sure he is not the only person in town who feels some of those ways.

Jon Campbell: That's part of the tension that killed the governor's housing plan last year. A key part of that was basically rezoning areas near public transit facilities, LIRR facilities on Long Island such as the case here. It would've made it easier to build near those areas and build multi-family units, big apartment buildings really around the LIRR stations. When you get into local zoning, that is something that the local governments fiercely protect. That is part of what killed the governor's housing plan last year. That's not part of her plan this year. That's not a coincidence that tension like you just heard from that caller is what helped get rid of it this year quite frankly.

Brian Lehrer: Let's get one more housing call in here before we go to retail theft and some of the other items. Here is-- let's see. All right, we're going to go to the Northern suburbs this time. Dan in Sleepy Hollow, you're on WNYC. Hi, Dan.

Dan: Hey, good morning. My dad lived in South Orange, New Jersey, and I am very impressed with what they've done in the village. I grew up there and he lived there for decades, built hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of apartments downtown. What is amazing about that is it allowed people downsizing from their big houses to stay in town, stay with their community, and actually build more community. It also helps people moving in, new families coming in waiting to find a place to buy.

What was so amazing about it is, like sadly my dad died recently and we had 200 people at his funeral. That was possible because he stayed in his community and he could walk to a synagogue and build community that way. We need to keep the characters in our community. We don't need to preserve the character of our buildings.

Brian Lehrer: Dan, thank you very much. While we're in Sleepy Hollow, let's do one more from up there. Kenny in Tarrytown, you're on WNYC. Hi, Kenny.

Kenny: Hey, Brian. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good.

Kenny: We have a situation here. In the neighboring village to Sleepy Hollow in Tarrytown where there is a housing development right by the train station called Ashbury Terrace. Basically, a few weeks ago, the tenants got a notice dropped on them from their landlord. It's a privately owned building that their rents are going to increase by 85%.

Brian Lehrer: Whoa.

Kenny: This is a fact. Unless they can prove eligibility for Section 8 and even then, there's a ceiling to how many Section 8 qualified appointments they can fill in the building. It's becoming a bit of a thing here, let's say. I'm just wondering is there any legal mechanism that the tenants and people advocating for them might have available to them to just try and at least force solve this, and work something out with the building management? Because they are legally within their rights to do it based on huts guidelines for what's allowable rent in Westchester.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Jon, you are not a lawyer, you are an Albany-based political reporter, but are you aware of either the individual instance that Kenny in Tarrytown is describing or that kind of thing, or if there is any legal recourse?

Jon Campbell: Let me say as a former reporter for the general news, I'm very glad to see Northern Westchester very well represented this morning on the show. I'm not familiar with this particular instance and in terms of HUD housing. I'm not entirely sure he said that, but he mentioned HUD there, I'm not entirely sure of what the mechanisms are there. What I would say is that part of what the Good Cause Housing Eviction Bill would do is to deal exactly with situations where a landlord tries to increase rent by 85%.

You would have that ability to say that is not a reasonable rent increase. You can make that case in housing court and in theory, you'd be able to win and get a far smaller rent increase. That is exactly what is being debated in terms of the tenant protections in Albany right now.

Brian Lehrer: We could also debate your characterizing Tarrytown as upper Westchester. Maybe we should call it Midwest. It's right at the foot of the Tappan Zee Bridge. I know you know this. I think of upper Westchester as like Katonah, North Salem.

Jon Campbell: Mount Kisco.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Jon Campbell: Yes, you're right. As somebody who I love debating the different regions and upstate, downstate, I should be better than that. You're right. You're absolutely right.

Brian Lehrer: Suburbs welcome, city dwellers welcome. We're talking about state policy out of Albany as a bunch of things are on the table could be resolved. Next week we're going to get on to the education portion of this. The crime and criminal justice portion of this may be more with our Albany reporter, Jon Campbell. Albany is definitely upstate. 212-433-WNYC. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue with our Albany reporter Jon Campbell on the late stage. We hope it's the late stage of negotiations on a whole suite of bills on various topics in the New York State legislature with lots of implications for lots of New Yorkers. Sometimes when we think about Albany and the Assembly and the Senate and the governor, we could think, "What planet are they on?"

Carl Heastie: Sometimes in the budget you might be in a different galaxy. I think we're all now even on the same planet, I'd say on the way I think we need to go.

Brian Lehrer: We may not know what planet they're on, but assembly speaker Carl Heastie. I know he was a little off-mic there talking to a bunch of reporters saying, "I guess Jon, he was saying, 'Yes, we're getting close, we're on the same planet.'"

Jon Campbell: David Patterson used to say that the capital is in Planet Albany. That is a nice little extension of that. If you listen to him there he's saying, we're close but we're not that close. We're getting there. It wasn't a surprise to see them miss the budget deadline. Quite frankly that's usually what happens in Albany say for some years under Andrew Cuomo when he made on-time budgets a priority of a symbol of government functioning. When you pass a temporary budget extender like they did yesterday, the legislature did, and the governor signed it.

There aren't really many consequences of the late budget. The payroll goes out on time. The payroll is really the big thing. When you do have the late budget, and you don't pass the extender, then you risk the payroll not going out on time and you don't want tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of state workers to be very angry with you.

Brian Lehrer: All right, next topic. Retail theft as an issue for the state legislature. We might think of this as a New York City law enforcement issue around the smash and grabs that make the news, but guess what, it's already illegal, isn't it, to steal stuff from stores and it's already illegal, isn't it? To assault workers in the store as you're doing it. Jon where does state law come in?

Jon Campbell: Thank governor has a multi-part plan bolster retail theft enforcement. One of the things she wants to do is to increase penalties for people who assault a retail worker. It's actually based on a bill that was already in the legislature. Jessica Scorton is a senator on Staten Island. She sponsors this bill that would do exactly just that. That piece of the governor's plan is meeting resistance from the legislature. I'd be really shocked if it made it through, quite frankly. Because the legislature, especially the Democratic assembly does not like increasing penalties.

Carl Heastie, the assembly speaker, who we heard from earlier, he's made a point of saying he does not think increased penalties deter [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Let me play that clip, in fact. This is 11 seconds. Again, he is off-mic here speaking to a group of reporters. I'll translate if you need to translate English to English, but it's just 11 seconds of speaker Carl Heastie saying pretty much what Jon just quoted him saying,

Carl Hastie: I just don't believe raising penalties is ever a deterrent on crime. There's already things in current law to deal with people who assault other people.

Brian Lehrer: Courtesy of Fox 5, the speaker said, "I just don't believe raising penalties is ever a deterrent on crime. There's already things in current law to deal with people who assault other people." That's quite a sweeping statement to make. Jon, I don't believe raising penalties is ever a deterrent on crime.

Jon Campbell: His broader point is essentially if you go and ask somebody in the process of committing a crime what the penalty is, they're not going to know it essentially. That gets at some of the tension between Democrats and Republicans in Albany on the issues of crime. Republicans have gone to great lengths to paint Democrats as soft on crime using statements like that, quite frankly.

The Governor has tried to be more of a centrist there and has tried to appear tough on crime in part because Lee Zeldin, her Republican opponent in 2022, used that issue to great effect against her in the 2022 election when she only won by 5½ points or so. She has tried to be tougher on crime. The legislature is to her left on that issue. You get to some tension there. That said, the Governor and the legislature are pretty much in agreement on a number of other issues related to retail theft.

The Governor wants to spend money, about $25 million to create this smash-and-grab enforcement unit in the state police. She wants to make tax credits available to small business owners to offset security measures in certain stores. The Legislature and the Governor seem to be in agreement on most of those things.

Brian Lehrer: I mentioned earlier that last year Hochul got through some bail law changes to make it easier for judges to require bail for certain defendants. Rolling back the bail reforms a little bit from a few years ago. We're still having enough high-profile crimes committed by multiple-time recidivists like the horrible murder of police officer Jonathan Diller during a traffic stop just this week, that the issue is still very alive in the public's mind. If Hastie was saying there that people don't even know what the penalties are for certain crimes, so they're not deterrent.

I see Governor Hochul will be attending Officer Diller's Wake today, and people probably are not much under the impression that bail reform has been rolled back. Are there bills before the legislature relevant to recidivism, which the governor and the mayor keep hanging this on, recidivism or anything else related as well as retail theft?

Jon Campbell: There are a number of bills in the legislature, though none of them seem to be part of the budget talks at this point. The budget is what is dominating all talks in Albany right now. They have rolled back to a certain extent, the bail reforms twice under Governor Hochul, and she is very fond of pointing that out and trying to make that clear to the public. To my knowledge, there's not another round of rollbacks on the table at this point.

Brian Lehrer: Call on this topic. Carol in Bedford, New York. Carol, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Carol: Hello. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good, thank you. What have you got?

Carol: At the start of your show, you said that Governor Hochul was talking about criminal justice reform and you mentioned being harder on shoplifters. That was mind-boggling to me because in my mind, that is not criminal justice reform. We have too many people in prison in New York state and criminal justice reform really has to focus on the status of those people in the state who are incarcerated and getting people out of prison rather than coming down harder on them when they commit a crime.

Their crimes come from things that happened to them years ago, which we're not addressing. I think that we need to focus on things that are before our legislators like clemency and the parole reform act guaranteeing that people who are incarcerated have visits with people in person from the outside, their family and their friends, and keeping the lines of communication open and free.

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Carol: Go ahead.

Brian Lehrer: Of course, Bedford talk about upper Westchester now, that's upper Westchester, and it's where there's also an important correctional facility. Carol, thank you for pointing those out. When we use the term criminal justice reforms, reforms can go in either direction. They can go in a more progressive direction or they can go in a more conservative direction and their reforms either way, they're just reform means change. I take your point on there being other kinds of reforms that don't seem to be getting the headlines, Jon. Are any of the things that Carol was citing there actually on the table?

Jon Campbell: Yes, actually. I've got to cite my good friends at POLITICO up in Albany who have reported that one of the things on the table that has come up in talks is the issue of phone calls from people in prison to their family members. There is a push as part of this budget, to make them free. That is something where the cost has come down in recent years, but they can be quite expensive for people in prison and their families.

There is a push to try to make those phone calls free. Another thing I would mention too is the prison population in New York has steadily declined over the years to the point where under Governor Cuomo, they did close several prisons, and now under Governor Hochul's proposal, she wants to close five more New York state prisons. That is actually proving to be difficult because there are rural lawmakers whose communities, quite frankly rely on these prisons to power their economy. There is some debate there. The Governor wants the authority to close up to five state prisons at the choice of the State Corrections Department. That is another issue on the table.

Brian Lehrer: Carol, thank you. Keep calling us. Donald Trump, as I mentioned earlier, was at the wake yesterday of Officer Diller calling for more law and order. Assuming Trump is not competitive for New York State's electoral votes in the presidential, Jon, was that politically to support the Republican suburban congressional candidates. Anyone on your state politics beat putting it in that context?

Jon Campbell: There's that idea because there are four relatively competitive seats on Long Island that were really key to flipping Congress to Republican control in 2022. Then there was also the contrast between former President Trump going to the Wake and current President Biden joined by President Clinton and President Obama at a fundraiser at Radio City Music Hall yesterday.

I'm sure there were politics at play on some level there. You can take your debate whether it was for the congressional candidates or whether it was to make the contrast with Biden himself there. I'm sure that was all baked into it.

Brian Lehrer: One more issue and one more clip, education. Here's a clip from a video that Governor Hochul's office released explaining one big change they want to make to the state education funding formula. This compares a richer and a poorer school district based on how much money they already can spend from their local taxes. This frames it as District A and District B.

Speaker 1: School District A is in a wealthy area. On top of state funding, it can also raise millions of dollars from local property taxes. Most districts even benefited from tax increases in their area during the last three years of record state funding. This means school district A has been able to put millions of dollars away for a rainy day while still offering a wide variety of electives and extracurricular activities to its students, a population that has actually been in steady decline in recent years. School District B is in a working-class community with lower property values, so it's tougher to support education through taxes or fundraising.

In fact, the district recently had to cut a few after-school clubs and merge its sports programs with nearby districts. They have no money set aside for a rainy day, and their student population is growing. State funding is vital to this school district's operations.

Brian Lehrer: That's from a Hochul's office video. We played this the other day as well with Senator Salazar if that sounds familiar. Jon, that makes the change that they're negotiating sound progressive, fighting unequal funding. I keep seeing these headlines that have to do with cuts and school districts up in arms about cuts. How would you frame what's actually going on?

Jon Campbell: How I would frame it is the way that New York distributes school funding, the formula is quite frankly, outdated. It dates back to the early 2000s. There's some aspects of it that are based on the 2000 census, if you can believe it and it causes these kinds of issues. The fact is lawmakers, when they go back to their district, they want to show that they got more money for their schools. Under the governor's proposal, which would get rid of a program called Hold Harmless, which basically guarantees that school districts get at least as much state money as they did the year prior, 44% of the state school district would receive less state funding next fiscal year.

That was a really, really difficult pill to swallow for lawmakers who want to go back to their districts and say, "I fought for you, I got more money for our schools." That is a thing that is being debated right now. The governor also wanted to make some changes to the way inflation is calculated in the school funding formula. She wants to smooth it out over a 10-year period rather than keep it on the more current. I think it's a two-year period. That would result in smaller increases but still would result in increases. Lawmakers seem a little more amenable to that than they do to getting rid of the Hold Harmless provision, which is what that video was about.

Brian Lehrer: Is she trying to take money from rich districts and give it to poor districts?

Jon Campbell: It's not that simple, unfortunately. A big factor in this Hold Harmless thing is their enrollment and districts that have lost enrollment. In some cases, it is richer districts. I think the biggest cut among all districts would be at the Three Village School District in Suffolk County, I should say, Ward Melville High School, way out there near Stony Brook. That is a richer district, but it doesn't exactly correlate that way. It is an effective argument to make, and it is true for many of the districts.

Brian Lehrer: Last question, that whole topic is based on property taxes that richer or poorer towns can collect, enriching or impoverishing their local schools without state aid, but New York City is the big exception. For people who don't know this, the city does not fund education through property taxes, even though most places in the state, most places in the country do. Does anything in this current education funding debate apply to New York City schools?

Jon Campbell: The inflation argument does. Smoothing out the inflation adjustment over 10 ten years, rather than a smaller timeframe would. Under the governor's budget, it would include $13.4 billion for New York City schools. That's a $342 million increase from the current year, but that increase would be larger if they went by the old way of factoring inflation. That's something that's still up for debate with the legislature right now.

Brian Lehrer: WNYC and Gothamist Albany reporter, Jon Campbell. The new fiscal year for New York State begins on Monday, that's April 1st. They will not make that deadline. They've already extended it to at least Thursday. We'll see how all these contentious items in play come out when they finally pass their bills. At least they say they're in the same galaxy, according to Assembly Speaker Heastie. Jon, thanks a lot.

Jon Campbell: My pleasure.

 

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