Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning everyone, and Happy Earth Day. Later this hour we will introduce a little Earth Week experiment that you can participate in from home or at work or wherever just to notice how many times you encounter single-use plastics between now and Friday, and which ones you think would be the easiest or hardest to avoid. One example from the news right now that we will talk about, the New York legislature is considering a bill that includes many things including a ban on cheese slices that are sold as individually wrapped in plastic. Those would be outlawed under the bill that's being considered now.

Also today, we'll have a morning before the first Seder Night Passover conversation with Harvard law professor Noah Feldman, author of an ambitious new book called To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People. He grapples with identity, antisemitism, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, political and religious diversity within Judaism, and more. He will help lead a conversation later in the show that might anticipate some difficult conversations across generational or other lines within families at a lot of people's Passover tables tonight.

Considering October 7th and Gaza and Hamas and the discord on the Columbia University campus and elsewhere right now as he takes your calls. We start with the news over the weekend that the New York State budget process with some major policy items that we've been covering baked in finally got passed over the weekend. We're going to run down some of the details for housing, retail theft, education, Medicaid, climate, and how some of these major debates we've been discussing on the show actually turned out in the end. Back with us is our WNYC in Gothamist, Albany reporter, Jon Campbell.

Hi, Jon. No weekend off for you. I guess. Thanks for doing some Monday morning politics studio with us. How many pages of a budget document did you have to read this weekend?

Jon Campbell: [laughs] Well, we knew a lot of the stuff that was going to be in it so that helped. I've read hundreds of pages but there are thousands of pages in the budget, so certainly, will never get through all of them, but I've read a good chunk of the important stuff over the weekend.

Brian Lehrer: Let's hope the lawmakers did too before they voted up or down, right?

Jon Campbell: Well, they wouldn't have possibly had time to considering that it was introduced the morning they voted on it. The big meaty big ugly budget bill, as we call it.

Brian Lehrer: The nickname for this behemoth is the big ugly. Do you know the origin of that? I don't.

Jon Campbell: I don't know the origin of it, but basically it is just the bill that everything gets tied and lumped together into. There's some lawmakers might want one part of it, other lawmakers might want another part. You mash them all together into one vote and then hopefully, you get over the number of votes you need to pass it. That is a longstanding Albany tradition, not just in the budget, but also at the end of the legislative session. It often happens too.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, you can help us report this story. We know some of you have been involved in lobbying on one side or another of any of the measures that have gone into the big ugly, the New York State budget for this fiscal year, which technically began on April 1st. If you have a reaction to how something came out, if you think it does satisfy the public policy need or doesn't, let us know.

Members of the assembly and the state Senate, you are welcome to call in and try to pat yourself on the back or criticize your colleagues or whatever you want to do. Or anyone else with a question for Jon Campbell on how any important New York State public policy item came out that might affect you or people you know, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. On this $237 billion, big ugly. That's how much New York State taxpayers will be spending over the next year.

Let's start, Jon, with what we've been talking about a lot on the show, that's been one of the most contentious issues. Housing developers wanted tax breaks and zoning changes to make it easier to build tall. Progressives were holding out for eviction and rent-increased protections. We've talked about both a lot on the show. Where did they finally end up?

Jon Campbell: They ended up pretty much where we expected they were going to end up way back in January. I remember talking with you on this show about how the groundwork is there for a compromise where you re-up this tax break for developers used to be known as 421a, now it's known as 485x. You pair that with eviction protections for tenants. That serves as the base of this big housing package. That's exactly what happened.

The good cause eviction protections, it's going to apply to certain renters in non-rent regulated units. It'll not actually cap your rent but gives you an argument against rent increases above 10% or 5% plus the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. Anything above that with certain caveats would be considered an unreasonable rent increase and you could challenge that in court. That forms the basis of the housing agreement here.

Brian Lehrer: Can you go one step further on that? If you can challenge your rent increase in a non-rent-regulated unit in court, what would the grounds be? What would a tenant or tenant advocacy group have to prove about a particular rent increase? Is it clear at all yet?

Jon Campbell: Yes, actually it is. What you would have to prove is that it is "unreasonable" and the law gives you, as a tenant, a rebuttable presumption they call it that a rent increase of more than 10% or 5%, plus the rate of inflation, whichever is lower, is unreasonable. However, it allows the landlord to argue and say, "Well, listen, I had to put substantial improvements into this apartment. The cost of heating fuel has gone way up if that's included in your rent," or anything like that, the landlord can argue to say, "This is why I have to go beyond that 10% or 5% plus the rate of inflation." That would be hashed out in housing court.

Brian Lehrer: In court, so the landlord might have to show their books to the judge.

Jon Campbell: In essence, yes, that is what's written in. Now that being said, there are lots and lots of exemptions to these good cause protections and that's something that has fired up housing tenant advocates because there's an exemption for buildings that were built since the start of 2009 that they have a 30-year exemption from this.

Brian Lehrer: What?

Jon Campbell: Exactly. They call it the new construction exemption because in theory, they don't want to prohibit or not prohibit, but they don't want to discourage new construction. That is the argument for that exemption. There's other exemptions for, they call the portfolio exemption, which is if a landlord owns fewer than 10 units, then they wouldn't be subject to these good cause protections. There's a bunch of other exemptions as well.

Brian Lehrer: On the tenant protections, as you know because you were listening in, Governor Hochul was on the show last week and couldn't say at that point what the final details would be, but she did say this.

Governor Hochul: This is the most significant changes for our tenants that they have seen. We worked really hard to find anti-gouging measures to limit what landlords could charge them. I believe, again, of course, there's always questions, there's always controversy. Everybody wants what they think is the perfect deal, but this is so much more than they had and I think I would take that as a win.

Brian Lehrer: To what degree Jon are housing advocates taking this as a win

Jon Campbell: They're not so much taking it as a win. They may be taking it as a minor win and saying that they're going to push for more in the future. On the tenant side, they're quite angry about these various exemptions that we just walked through and they're not super happy about that. That being said, the governor's argument is basically a phrase that we hear a lot in Albany, which is, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. That is what she's trying to argue that, hey, you got something here and you should be happy with that.

I think a lot of tenant advocates in particular aren't happy and landlord advocates aren't happy either. Particularly on the rent-regulated side, they wanted more leeway to increase rents when they make improvements to apartments. They got some, they wanted more. Nobody's really super happy with all of this.

Brian Lehrer: Tell us a little bit more about the development tax breaks that's supposed to spur construction of more housing which is needed in and of itself, and affordable housing, which is especially needed below market rate housing. the old tax break program known as 421a expired, they given the new tax break program for the right kind of development, a much sexier name. Now it's 485x. [chuckles] Tell people why it's called 485x, and then tell us what's in it.

Jon Campbell: That is the section of the I believe it's the real property law that it is under. It used to be 421a, now it is 485 subsection x. It is yes, a very sexy name, as you said there. Basically, it is a long-term property tax break in exchange for building residential properties that have a certain percentage of affordable units. Units available to people who make less than a certain percentage of the area median income. Basically, there are lots of caveats here and different ways you can structure the deals, but basically, you have to include a certain percentage, either 20% or 25% depending on how you structure it, affordable units for people who make an average of less than 80% of the area median income. Now, that is a lot to process there.

I actually mispoke when we spoke last week and said we were talking about the area median income and how that's set. That's actually set by the federal government, and it is based under New York City region. It's not more targeted than that, but yes, that is the basics of this developer deal.

Brian Lehrer: Just to be clear to our listeners, the implications of that, since the percentage of the area median income, that so-called affordable housing can be built for, the overall regional median income is higher than the median income in low-income neighborhoods. Listeners, I think that's clear. If you're in, pick your low-income neighborhood, where the incomes by definition are low, the so-called affordable rents are being pegged to higher incomes than you probably make.

Jon Campbell: Right. Basically, I'm looking at the chart right now of what the New York City area median income is. 80% is the basic number that we're working off here for this tax credit. For a family of four, that would be about $124,000. If you made less than that and you have a family of four, your combined family income is less than $124,000, you would be eligible for a below-market rate unit or the price would be held below that or would be held to fair market value for that price. It's complicated, but that is essentially a family of four if you make less than $124,000, that is generally you would be eligible for the affordable units under this tax credit.

Brian Lehrer: Right. That's a lot of competition with families of four making $35,000 a year and $40,000 a year, but all right. Let's move on to one more piece of the housing package and then we're going to go on to other things. We see some callers coming in on the education piece. John, a school principal in Commack, we see you. On the climate peace, Judy in Elmsford, we see you. We're going to get to both of you, but one more housing thing, basement apartments, which we've talked about on the show. Legalizing more of them, bringing them up to code.

Listeners sends us this text message. "I am a resident of Southeast Queens. If the budget includes ADUs, accessory dwelling units", those are units outside the main home, "the elected officials that represent this area will suffer greatly at the polls. We are not happy with this measure being rammed down our throats." What's an accessory dwelling unit and was it rammed down their throats?

Jon Campbell: An accessory dwelling unit is say you live in a one-family home and you want to put an apartment in your attic or in your garage or if you're in an area where you have egress and it's legal in your basement then you could add to that without having to rezone basically. There is a measure in here that would allow for accessory dwelling units but as I understand it, it is an opt-in system. It is not a broad-based approval for that but it could make it easier for county, cities, town, village to approve a resolution that allows this to happen.

There's that but then there also is the basement apartment proposition here. The measure that is also in this budget that is specific to New York City and that is going to create a pilot program where you can bring your basement apartments up to code, legalize them, and make sure that you have the correct egress and things that allow you to be up to code to actually make your illegal basement apartment a legal one.

Now, there was pushback from individual lawmakers, so it is very, very, it's this patchwork of different community boards that will be allowed to allow this pilot program to happen. It's patches of Manhattan, patches of Brooklyn, one community board in Queens, a couple in the Bronx. There's already been some criticism of that.

Brian Lehrer: In other words, there are neighborhoods of the city where you can do these legal basement rental conversions and parts of New York City where you can't based on this new state law.

Jon Campbell: Yes, basically. This pilot program, you can do it in Bronx Community District 9 but not Bronx Community District 8. The only one in Queens is Queens District 2, which doesn't even include some of those areas of Queens that saw flooding and people die from the--

Brian Lehrer: In Hurricane Ida.

Jon Campbell: --basement apartments that flooded during Ida.

Brian Lehrer: Do you know what is Queens Community Board District 2, like basic neighborhoods, do you have it?

Jon Campbell: I don't have it in front of me right now, but I'm pulling it up as we speak, and it looks to be Southwestern Queens like the areas around Mount Zion Cemetery, Calvary Cemetery, down near there. That kind of area.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Southeastern Queens not so much because that's where the unhappy listener wrote from, so down Southeast of Jamaica there, including Jamaica, or Ozone Park, or Laurelton around there, can you tell?

Jon Campbell: Nothing that I see. The only Community District in there is Community District 2 for Queens. Other boroughs have more, but in Queens, it's literally only the 2nd Community District there.

Brian Lehrer: John in Commack on Long Island, you're on WNYC. Hi, John.

John: Hi, Brian, thank you so much for taking my call. I work in a school district in Suffolk County that was hurt by the state budget. Governor Hochul's initial school aid runs back in January, we were set to receive less state funding than last year, but the state budget that was approved did bring back the hold harmless clause that guarantees school districts receive at least as much state funding as last year. Now we are set to receive the same amount of funding as last year, but so many of our costs, many of which are outside of our control have increased significantly.

Now the options that we're faced with as a district are to excess staff, which would eliminate programs and increase class sizes, or adopt a budget that would potentially pierce the state's tax cap law calculation, and that type of budget would require 60% or more approval from the community in order to pass.

Brian Lehrer: Where do you think the educators and the students of Commack are going to feel it?

John: I live in Commack. I don't work in Commack, but in my district, I think if we are looking at potentially accessing staff, we're certainly going to see larger class sizes and fewer program opportunities for kids, maybe things like clubs, indoor sports, extracurriculars would be cut. Larger class sizes, and I think potentially fewer opportunities for students.

Brian Lehrer: Can you say which school district you work in?

John: If it's okay with you, I prefer not to but it is in Suffolk County.

Brian Lehrer: John, thank you for checking in on that. We really appreciate it. Jon Campbell, our Albany reporter who's briefing us on how the final version of the New York State budget for this fiscal year came out over the weekend. Jon, is that something you're hearing a lot yet from other principals? He identified himself as a principal and from certain neighborhoods or towns in New York State and not others.

Jon Campbell: Yes. Education funding makes up a giant portion of the state budget. Between education and Medicaid, it's about half of the state funding portion of the budget. There is an increase overall in education funding this year, but there was this big battle over the hold harmless provision, which John just brought up as well. Where that settled was the governor gave that up for this year and said, "Okay, we'll keep that provision in place where school districts get at least as much money as the year before from the state." She did get a provision that changed the way they calculate inflation. They smooth it out more, so then districts will be getting perhaps a little less than they had anticipated under the previous inflation calculation.

That is always a huge, huge battle in the state budget. It was this year, and that's where they landed. They also landed on, they're going to do a study with the Rockefeller Institute, a SUNY think tank up here in Albany, where they're going to try to make recommendations on how to change the funding formula going forward. They're due to report that before the start of next fiscal year.

Brian Lehrer: Also on education, we will just note, because we've been covering it a lot on the station, so we don't need to go into it in too much detail here, but mayoral control of the schools, which had been reported not to have been going to make it into the budget, but then it did. The mayor gets a two-year extension, but with strings attached, specifically on reducing class size more quickly to comply with the state law that requires a reduction in class size. Can you just say in a sentence, Jon, because I want to move on to other things, how deeply, how quickly?

Jon Campbell: The law was already in place, and it requires it over the coming few years to reduce class sizes to 25 to 20 students, depending on what grade level. You basically have to use this increase in state funding to apply that law, to acquire new classroom space or hire new teachers, whatever you need to do to get those class sizes down. You have to, A, spend $2 billion more and use your state increase to do that and not cut other areas of education to make it happen.

Brian Lehrer: I know the mayor is complaining that it is not fully funded enough by the state to fulfill what the state is now requiring. I'm sure we'll hear more from mayor at his Tuesday news conference about that. Judy in Elmsford, you're on WNYC. Hi, Judy.

Judy: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. I'm calling about the New York HEAT Act, which stands for the New York Home Energy Affordability Transition. We've been pushing for it for a couple of years now. It would lower heating expenses for low and middle-income people, and it would remove the subsidies and the requirements that the utilities have to put in new gas lines, which is in violation of the CLCPA, the Climate Protection Act--

Brian Lehrer: To new construction.

Judy: -to new construction. They just put it in, and it would be subsidized and paid for by the ratepayers.

Brian Lehrer: Judy, thank you very much. Yes, the New York HEAT Act, which we did a whole separate segment on in our Climate Story of the Week the other week. Jon, I think she described it accurately. It would cap utility payments at, I think, 6% of somebody's income. For people in certain low income and working-class income categories who do pay more than 6% of their income in utility bills, it would have capped it. As Judy said, it would have made not automatic anymore and not subsidized by the state, automatic natural gas hookups to new residential buildings, though they still could do it. It got defeated. Why couldn't it pass?

Jon Campbell: The assembly is the tough house here. The governor included measures, not the entire HEAT act, but the big part of it, the 100-foot rule, they call it. She did include that in her budget. The Senate was generally moving in that direction, was on board, and the assembly didn't allow it to happen.

It's the assembly that stood in the way here, and people have concerns about what that might mean for the utility system in the near term. The advocates argue this is a longer-term thing. This is about moving away from natural gas infrastructure. That, I'm sure, is something that will come up in the post-budget portion of the legislative session, which we've got about a month and a half left on.

Brian Lehrer: One more call before we segue. Should have taken Judy last because our next segment is going to be an Earth Day segment, but I'll just tell you, listeners, that it's coming up in less than five minutes. Katie in Putnam County, one more call for Jon Campbell on how the New York State budget turned out. Katie, you're on WNYC.

Katie: Hi, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. I'm calling as a family member of a person an adult with developmental disabilities. Our clause doesn't get much press, which is really frustrating because we have thousands of really, really vulnerable people across New York State that have been struggling with, which everybody accepts, is a severe workforce crisis that affects the health, safety, inclusion, anything over the past five years and more. A 1.7% COLA is given to direct care staff, which is probably about 30 cents an hour for these people that are already making minimum wage. We can't hire staff.

Brian Lehrer: In other words, that's a very small COLA cost of living in increase for workers with people with developmental disabilities?

Katie: Yes. For me, it's the fifth year that we've been advocating as loudly as we can as family members that don't have lobbyists and don't have PACs and all this. We're family members that are yelling and screaming to our legislators and to the governor. Again, it's like every year we get less, and they know it's a crisis, and they know that there's incidents after incidents that go to their justice center and problems, and the providers say they can't afford to pay them more. What does she think is the answer? You're just going to leave it alone again?

Brian Lehrer: Katie, thank you. Jon, this comes up every year. Katie's right, right?

Jon Campbell: Yes, absolutely. It doesn't just come up with what Katie's talking about there. It is through many different long-term care programs and various healthcare programs that are looking for either an increase in wages or an increase in reimbursement rates for services provided. That was a big, big debate this year at the Capitol as well. The governor had wanted to do about $1.2 billion in Medicaid cuts going forward. The legislature restored about $800 million or so. This was a big, big debate at the Capitol, and it is every year because health spending in general makes up a big chunk of the budget.

Brian Lehrer: We are going to leave it there. Our partial tour of what's in the new New York State Budget Agreement. There are other things that you can read in Jon's reporting on Gothamist, or you'll be hearing on the station in areas we didn't get to, Medicaid, cracking down on illegal cannabis shops, cracking down on retail theft by making more minor assaults than in the past felonies on retail workers in the process of retail theft and aid for the city in dealing with migrants. Governor Hochul gave, and the legislature gave Mayor Adams some of what he wanted.

This is why they call it the big ugly. We'll focus on the big part of that. It is really big. It is thousands of pages of policy details. We've just gone over some of the big ones. I'm sure we will discuss more as the implications of what got passed and what didn't get passed become clearer. Our Albany reporter for WNYC and Gothamist Jon Campbell. Jon, thank you so much.

Jon Campbell: Thank you, Brian.

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