Gov. David Paterson today said that thanks to the federal stimulus money, which about $2.4 billion will go to New York schools, cuts to education won’t be needed in the 2009-10 fiscal year. Then he went on to say the state needs to tighten its belt.

The money will restore all the cuts made his in budget proposal in December.

“Every cut we made to school districts we will restore in this budget process,” he said during a speech today at the Sequoya Middle School on Long Island.

In speaking to reporters afterwards, Paterson said that any further budget gaps would require the state to reassess the cuts. He also took issue with suggestions from Republicans that a SUNY tuition increase should be used to help the colleges, not help the state close its $14 billion budget gap.

Ninety percent of the $620 SUNY tuition increase is going to the budget gap, but Paterson said in the past 100 percent of any tuition increase went back to the state, not the colleges.

Then he reiterated how dire the state’s fiscal situation is, saying people don’t seem to understand how serious a $14 billion gap is and how the cuts and fee increases he proposed were unavoidable.

“We’re in a drastic situation,” he said. “People finally figured out it’s the worst crisis since the Great Depression.  It may be a worse crisis since the Great Depression if in the next year our governments, state and federal, don’t start addressing it. The federal government is doing it through stimulus, and we have to do it through tightening our belts.”

Former Yonkers Councilman Dennis Robertson says he plans to challenge fellow Democrat and City Council President Chuck Lesnick for the Council’s top leadership post at a party convention in April.

Robertson said he would not run a primary against Lesnick if he lost at the party convention, saying he would not have enough campaign money to wage a successful battle against an incumbent without party support.

Robertson said Lesnick is not a strong enough leader on the Council and could prove vulnerable against a challenge by the Republicans. Republican Jim Castro-Blanco announced his attention to seek Republican backing for a City Council President race.

The 48-year-old Robertson is the full-time director of housekeeping at Yonkers Raceway’s Empire City, the video gambling operation run by the state Lottery, and he said he continues to operate an office cleaning consulting business.

Robertson unsucessfully challenged Yonkers Republican Mayor Phil Amicone’s bid for a second term in 2007, a contest that taught him, Robertson said, the importance of healthy campaign coffer.

“If I learned anything in the mayor’s race it was: you need enough money to define yourself for the voters and not let other people define you,” Robertson said.

Gov. David Paterson today announced the next round of town-hall meetings, to be held in Niagara Falls on March 4 and Rochester on Wednesday, March 11.

He will also hold a second student town-hall meeting at SUNY Geneseo on Thursday, March 12.

The Niagara Falls Town Hall meeting will take place at the Niagara Falls Housing Authority’s Doris W. Jones Family Resource Building, 3001 9th Street, Niagara Falls. Doors will open at 4:30 p.m., with the event scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m.

The Rochester Town Hall meeting will take place at the Rochester Riverside Convention Center’s Lilac Ballroom, 123 East Main St. Doors will open at 4:30 p.m., with the event scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m.

The second town hall meeting will take place at SUNY Geneseo’s Wadsworth Auditorium, 1 College Circle, Geneseo. Doors will open at 10 a.m., with the event scheduled to begin at 11 a.m.

To attend or submit questions, visit the governor’s website.

   Following a federal court decision last week, legal-rights and mental-health advocates and adult-home residents held a news conference today demanding that the state overhaul the system that places thousands of New Yorkers with psychiatric disabilities in adult homes. They want the state Office of Mental Health to dedicate 25 percent of new mental-health housing for adult-home residents and are urging officials to move swiftly in helping place residents in community settings.

   Last week, a District Court judge rejected the state’s attempts to dismiss a lawsuit filed six years ago on the issue and ordered a trial. Several non-profit groups allege in the lawsuit that the state is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act because adults with mental illness are not being placed in the least integrated setting, meaning independent housing in their communities. In-depth reports by the New York Times brought to light that many adult-home residents in New York City were living in poor conditions.

   “The state has delayed long enough,” Cliff Zucker, executive director of Disability Advocates, said in a statement. Diability Advocates is one of the groups that brought the suit.

   “The governor should resolve this matter by creating the integrated community housing that adult-home residents are entitled to under the Americans with Disabilities Act,” he said.

   Judge Nicholas Garaufis noted in his decision that the state failed to implement the recommendations of the Adult Home Work Group, which was convened by former Gov. George Pataki. The panel said the state should develop plans and a timetable to move 6,000 adult-home residents to alternative housing. Read more of this entry »

With the state set to receive an infusion of $24.6 billion in federal stimulus aid, Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County, said today that Gov. David Paterson and Democrats in the majority should repeal the $250 million in fees and taxes on health-insurance costs approved by lawmakers last month.

They should also return the $306 million that was swept from the state Power Authority to close the $1.6 billion budget gap in the 2008-09 fiscal year, which ends March 31, he said. He said the money should be used to lower energy costs for upstate businesses.

And they should also eliminate the $620 a year tuition increase at SUNY; the money is being used almost entirely to help close the state’s $14 billion budget gap in the 2009-10 fiscal year, Skelos said.

Skelos reiterated his concerns that the stimulus money will not be fairly distributed around the state, saying talk of building high-speed rail in upstate New York is a good idea but shouldn’t be a substitute for aid that would help the upstate economy now.

“The reality is that high-speed will not happen for another 10, 15, 20 years. It involves billions and billions of dollars,” he said. “So I don’t want the governor to say to the western part of the state or upstate New York, your piece of the action is going to be a high-speed rail, 15, 20 years from now. They need immediate stimulus money in order to start creating jobs in that part of the state.”

Earlier in the day, Paterson knocked lawmakers on WNYC radio for fighting over where the aid will go, citing the state’s dire fiscal condition.

“We’re in an emergency, we’re in a crisis,” he said. “One of the things that is disturbing me about a lot of people right now is they acknowledge that we are in a crisis in the academic sense, but then when you try to respond to the crisis, you start hearing regional and political interests.”

Here’s Democratic candidate Scott’s Murphy’s take on today’s Siena poll:

Republican candidate Jim Tedisco had a 50 percent to 29 percent lead in a Feb. 5 poll from the National Republican Campaign Committee. So now it’s cut nearly in half, to 46-34 percent.

“Murphy has clearly built momentum in just three short weeks with his strong economic message, while voters have increasingly rejected career Albany politician Tedisco’s misleading attacks and his stubborn refusal to support President Obama’s economic policies,” Murphy’s campaign said.

And here’s Tedisco’s take:

He has a 12-point lead and a 14-point lead with independents, which is 25 percent of the district. And that’s on top of the 41 percent of voters in the district that are registered Republicans. Tedisco also has an 11-point lead with women and winning every age bracket.

“Jim Tedisco is in a very strong position but is taking nothing for granted,” said spokesman Josh Fitzpatrick. “We have said all along this will be a competitive special election and the campaign will continue focusing on Jim Tedisco’s proven record of fighting for Upstate families and small businesses.”

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, defended his proposal today to put a $2 toll on the East and Harlem rivers bridges as part of a plan to increase payroll taxes to bail out the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

He said his plan is less than the $4.50 toll proposed by the Ravitch Commission.

“I think we put together a plan that mitigates what was asked for in terms of a $4.50 tolling of the bridges, which what was asked for, gives us the opportunity to eliminate the substantial fare increase, eliminate the service cuts,” Silver said. “Ultimately the MTA is the lifeblood of the city and the suburban region.”

While Silver said he has enough support for the plan in the Assembly, some Democratic senators said they would not support any toll increases on the bridges.

“It’s a huge money grab,” said Sen. Carl Kruger, D-Brooklyn. “And the Assembly and this Legislature last year did not support congestion pricing. This is another mechanism to implement congestion pricing.”

Asked about the opposition, Silver said he’d like to see their alternatives.

The Legislature and Gov. David Paterson are expected to reach an agreement next week.

 

It’s (almost) official.

Robert Astorino, a Republican who ran against County Executive Andrew Spano, is going to announce his candidacy for another run on March 21 at the Mount Pleasant Community Center, 125 Lozza Drive.

Astorino garnered 42 percent of the vote in his last run against Spano and is expected to campaign on similar issues — government reform and tax relief. He says county government is bloated, inefficient and not responsive to citizens. Astorino has been raising money for the race.

See who is giving to both candidates in our database.

Astorino is now program director of the Catholic Channel on Sirius Satellite Radio and hosts a weekly show from St. Patrick’s Cathedral with the Archbishop of New York.

A former county legislator, Astorino served on the Mount Pleasant Town Board for 12 years, including six years as deputy supervisor. He also served on the Mount Pleasant Board of Education.

Governor George Pataki in 2006 appointed him to the Hudson Valley Greenway. He serves on the Westchester Business Council’s Government Action Committee, is a charter member of the Mount Pleasant Rotary Club, a member of the North Castle Land Trust, as well as other profession associations.

He has a bachelor’s of arts in communications from Fordham University. He is married with two children.

State Assemblyman Greg Ball, R-Patterson, tomorrow plans to unveil his “Task Force of Job Creation and Retention in the Hudson Valley.” The plan, according to a press release from the assemblyman, is meant “to help prevent future job loss and strengthen the region’s economy. ”

From Ball’s press release:

Ball’s plan is multifaceted: demanding transparency for usage of taxpayer dollars that go towards economic development; making smart use of the $24.6 billion in stimulus dollars New York State will receive from Washington, DC; reforming Industrial Development Agencies and Empire Zone Programs to attract and assist businesses; holding the line against job loss through outsourcing and worker misclassification.

Ball is scheduled to make two stops tomorrow. One is in Carmel, which is part of his 99th Assembly District. The first stop of the day, though, is in Warwick in Orange County – which isn’t in the assembly district but is part of the 19th Congressional District.

As a side note, the press release sent out on Wednesday (2/25) says the event is this Friday and gives the date as 2/24. A call to Ball’s office, though, confirmed the event is 2/27.

UPDATE: Ball’s office sent out a revised and corrected release with the 2/27 date.

Board of Legislators Chairman William Ryan, D-White Plains, appointed Steve Bass, a long-time committee coordinator for the county board and Greenburgh Town Board member, as his new assistant. Although the position as Ryan put it, was “downgraded,” Bass is effectively replacing Ryan’s former chief adviser Gary Kriss, who is in the midst of his own legal battles. Read the full story here.

Ryan, in a sit-down with The Journal News yesterday, said Bass won’t work on his campaign and reiterated the board’s policy that no staffers work on any campaigns against a sitting legislator. Ryan and all 17 legislators are up for election in November.