Politics on the Hudson

State Education Commissioner John King and Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch announced today that they are implementing a number of reforms to assessment tests and Regents exams as a result of recommendations from a probe of the Education Department’s test policies and procedures. The Board of Regents will vote on the proposed changes—which are aimed at correcting shortcomings in the Education Department’s practices for receiving, reviewing and following up on alleged violations of test integrity—at its monthly meeting next week.

King said his agency will create a new Test Security Unit, which will be staffed with investigators and lawyers who have law-enforcement experience. They will be charged with adopting and enforcing a code of ethics and creating policies and procedures to the intake, referral, review, tracking and dispositions of allegations and investigation of impropriety in testing and prosecution of moral-character cases. The department, which will have five to 10 employees, will improve security protocols where necessary and conduct audits and assist school districts that are conducting investigations. Any school employee who learns of a security breach in student testing will be mandated to report it, with sanctions for failure to do so.

“This was not done in response to a widespread problem or epidemic,” Tisch said during a conference call with reporters this afternoon. “The department and the Regents have the confidence in the excellence and hard work and the integrity of New York’s teachers and principals.”

The Board of Regents made several changes to testing policies last fall, such as barring teachers from scoring their own students’ state assessments.

But the Department of Education needs money to create the new unit. The agency has requested $2.1 million in state funding in the 2012-13 state budget for “test integrity measures,” including erasure analysis and data forensics. It has not been successful so far. Lawmakers are in the midst of annual budget negotiations and have until April 1, the start of the new fiscal year, to adopt a spending and revenue plan.

“The budget process is not yet complete so we remain optimistic that there is still the possibility that funding may be found in the budget,” King said in a conference call with reporters this afternoon.

King appointed Henry “Hank” Greenberg of the Greenberg Traurig law firm to conduct the review in November. He was counsel to Gov. Andrew Cuomo when Cuomo was attorney general and is a former assistant U.S. attorney. Greenberg, who did the review pro bono, said the new system will make New York a national model for test integrity.

Also today, Tisch and King released a statement in support of legislation the Senate and Assembly adopted to strengthen the state’s teacher-evaluation system by tying in student performance, among other factors. The system was created under a 2010 state law, but Cuomo criticized how slowly districts and unions were putting teacher and principal evaluations in place. He negotiated an agreement with unions and the state Education Department last month. School districts risk future funding increases if they don’t put evaluation systems in place. (more…)

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli just released a statement on the Tier VI pension legislation adopted by the Assembly and Senate overnight, saying it would not significantly reduce pension costs for local governments in the short term.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has said he would sign the bill, which would apply to new state employees only. The retirement age would increase from 62 to 63 and employees would have to contribute more toward their retirement. Cuomo’s office estimated the reduced retirement benefits would save local governments $80 billion over the next 30 years.

Hundreds of public employees just finished protesting changes to the pension system outside the Capitol.

DiNapoli said he is glad the changes don’t include giving new employees the option of choosing a 401(k)-style system or the traditional defined-benefit pension. Cuomo had proposed including this option, but it wasn’t in the final legislation.

This is DiNapoli’s statement:

“The agreement reached between the Governor and the Legislature on Tier VI will reduce pension costs for new employees. But this new tier will not significantly lower costs for local governments in the short run. I am pleased that it does not include the inadequate 401k-style plan originally proposed. My office will be reviewing the specifics of Tier VI in the coming days and provide guidance to municipalities on implementation.

“There is no quick fix to addressing rising pension contribution rates driven by the financial market meltdown in 2008-09. Despite strong investment returns and two new pension tiers in less than three years, these rates will likely continue to increase in the near future.

“New York has one of the strongest, most sustainable pension funds in the country because it has been managed and funded responsibly over the years.As State Comptroller, it is my job to ensure that this continues.”

Senate Minority Leader John Sampson, D-Brooklyn, said his conference has filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court today over redistricting. The challenge is over the 63rd Senate seat created in the new legislative lines, which were passed by the Assembly and Senate late last night.

Senate Democrats, minus the four members of the Independent Democratic Conference, exited the chamber after what was supposed to be a debate of up to four hours was cut short by Republicans, who control the chamber.

Sampson said further challenges are planned on the federal level.

This is the statement he just released:

“The redistricting fight is far from over. Yesterday’s disgusting assault on democracy did not end the redistricting process for 2012. Today, Senate Democrats filed suit in State Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the creation of a 63rd District.

“Additional challenges will be coming before the Department of Justice and federal courts against racial gerrymandering, the cracking and packing of minority communities and the blatant violation of the one person-one vote principle.

“To those who participated in this affront to democracy, we say ‘we’ll see you in court.’”

Democratic legislators walked out of Senate session before midnight Wednesday after a motion was adopted to end the debate on redistricting. Democrats said they had secured a promise from the Senate GOP majority that the debate on each of the redistricting bills could run up to four hours. About half of that had gone by when a GOP motion was approved to curtail the debate.

Senate Majority Leader John Sampson, D-Brooklyn, encouraged his colleagues to leave the chamber en masse. As a result, the Democrats missed the vote on adopting new legislative districts, which is done once every 10 years based on census numbers. The unofficial vote on that bill was 36-0.

Democrats missed the debate and vote on the companion redistricting bill that would amend the state constitution and set up an independent redistricting panel 10 years from now. The legislation would have to be approved by two consecutive legislatures, so the earliest it would be sent to votes is November 2013. The unofficial vote on that bill was also 36-0.

Sampson said members of his conference would not be returning to session. The Senate recessed for a Rules Committee meeting and Senate Republican conference.

“They eliminated our right to debate. We’re going back to pre-civil rights eras, when people were denied the fundamental right to speak their mind, to advocate for the opportunity to vote,” he told reporters outside the Senate chamber. “And this is what’s going in this chamber. They talk about they have changed Albany. They haven’t changed Albany. It’s back to the way Albany used to be—dysfunction.”

Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County, cited from the rules on the floor of the chamber after Democrats left. The rules require all senators to be present during sessions, “unless duly excused or necessarily prevented,” and vote on each question. “If any Senator refuses to vote, unless he or she be excused by the Senate, or unless he or she be interested, such refusal shall be deemed a contempt,” the rules state.

The Democrat-led Assembly voted in favor of the new district lines and constitutional amendment earlier Wednesday night.

The proposed redistricting lines are “gerrymandered” and “partisan,” and they “disenfranchise communities of color,” Sampson said. ”This is not democracy, this is a dictatorship by the majority, and we should all be concerned. Every New Yorker needs to be concerned,” he said.

Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, said she was “ashamed” of the Senate.

“I sat there for two hours knowing we had a four-hour scheduled debate. I watched my colleagues, incredibly eloquently, raise issues about racial gerrymandering and violating the rights of people throughout the state of all colors,” she said. “I then watched as a white woman 32 votes to stop us from actually raising these issues on the floor of the Senate. Can you imagine New York, 2012, we’re actually looking like some story of a southern state in the 1950s. It’s very embarrassing, and I think every New Yorker should be horrified.”

This is video of some of Sampson’s comments:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders have just announced an agreement on a process that would amend the state constitution to allow casino gambling. A proposed amendment has to be passed in two consecutive terms of the Legislature before being put to voters. The earliest date for a vote would be November 2013.

The governor, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, said in a statement that casinos could create thousands of good-paying jobs while keeping tourism and other revenue associated with casino development in the state.

“By taking these important first steps to legalize casinos we are finally confronting the reality that while New York is already in the gaming business, we need a real plan to regulate and capitalize on the industry,” Cuomo said in a statement. “This is a process that will ultimately put thousands of New Yorkers to work, drive our economy, and help keep billions of dollars spent by New Yorkers on gaming here in New York State.”

The agreement would permit up to seven commercial casinos in New York. Native Americans have five casinos in the state, and there are nine racinos at race tracks. New York is surrounded by states and Canadian provinces that have legalized casino gambling.

“I am pleased we have reached an agreement to move forward with a constitutional amendment that will give New Yorkers a say on whether we expand casino gaming in New York State. I thank Senator John Bonacic for his leadership, and look forward to negotiating the details of the implementing legislation prior to putting it out to the voters in 2013.”

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said, “Under the current system, gaming revenue is pouring out of the state as New Yorkers spend their entertainment dollars in neighboring states. We need the ability to keep that revenue here in New York.”

Hundreds of students and faculty from the State University of New York and City University of New York marched around the Capitol today to demand more funding for higher education. Public colleges and universities have lost $1.7 billion in funding since 2008, according to New York State United Teachers, which participated in the march.

Also today, the Alliance for Quality Education held a rally in support of K-12 education with about 1,500 people from around the state. After that, NYSUT, the New York Public Interest Research Group, the AQE and a number of student organizations marched together to protest the “growing education crisis” in the state, said Billy Easton, executive director of AQE. They were joined by people pressing for the state to approve education aid for undocumented immigrant students who have been in this country for a certain period of time and want to attend college. The legislation is known as the DREAM Act.

Lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration are in negotiations on the state budget. The new fiscal year starts April 1.

The CUNY and SUNY contingent marched down State Street in a column three wide and several blocks deep, led by NYSUT Executive Vice President Andy Pallotta; Phil Smith, president of United University Professions; Barbara Bowen, president of the Professional Staff Congress; Steve London, PSC first vice president; and Eileen Landy, UUP secretary, NYSUT said. The SUNY faculty are represented by United University Professions, which represents 35,000 academic and professional faculty on 29 state-operated campuses. CUNY faculty are represented by the Professional Staff Congress.

“You should not be denied an excellent opportunity for success,” Pallotta told students at a news conference outside Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office in the Capitol. “Demand it, fight for it, don’t give it up!”

This is video of students and faculty members marching down State Street, across from the Capitol:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders announced this evening that they have reached an agreement on expanding the state’s DNA databank. The deal means New York will be the first state in the country with an “all crimes” DNA database. DNA samples will be collected from anyone convicted of a felony or penal law misdemeanor.

In response to concerns among the Democrat-controlled Assembly, the compromise bill includes provisions that expand defendants’ access to DNA testing and comparison before and after conviction in appropriate circumstances, as well as post-conviction discovery to demonstrate innocence.

Cuomo included the proposal for an all-crimes database in his budget proposal for the 2012-13 fiscal year, which starts April 1.

This is a statement from Cuomo:

“It is a proven fact: DNA helps solve crimes, prosecute the guilty, and protects the innocent. This bill will greatly improve law enforcement’s ability to keep New York communities safe and bring justice to victims of violent crimes, as well as those who have been wrongly convicted. For too long, a limiting factor to our ability to solve crimes through DNA was the fact the law did not encompass all crimes. This new law will right those wrongs. I commend Majority Leader Skelos and Speaker Silver for their leadership on this issue and thank the members of the Legislature for putting New Yorkers first.”

Senate Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos, R-Nassau County, said DNA is the “21st Century equivalent of a fingerprint and the most powerful law enforcement tool to catch and prosecute criminals and protect victims.”

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, said the database “provides for more fair and equal access to DNA testing and the Databank for those who are wrongly charged with and convicted of crimes.

“When a person is wrongly convicted, the real perpetrator is allowed to remain free and potentially commit other crimes. Therefore, in addition to expanding the DNA Databank to help identify the true criminal, this legislation will, for the first time, provide wrongly convicted defendants with a fair opportunity to prove their innocence,” he said.

The DNA Databank was launched in 1996 in the state. DNA has been used for more than 2,900 convictions and has exonerated 27 individuals and “countless suspects cleared early on in investigations,” the governor’s office said.

The Legislature’s Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Caucus sent a letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo today opposing his proposal for a new, less generous pension tier. It would apply to new employees only. It would raise the retirement age from 62 to 65, increase contribution rates, require 12 years of employment to be vested, and provide an option of joining a 401(k)-type plan instead of a traditional defined-benefit pension.

“This legislation, while touted as a way to help our economy, will only hurt the every day working citizens of the state and rest an undue burden on working families who already earn modest incomes,” Caucus Chairman Karim Camara, a Democratic assemblyman from Brooklyn, wrote in the letter.

Public-employee unions have been lobbying hard against creating a Tier 6 pension, saying it would reduce benefits by 40 percent or more for future employees.

But local-government officials are in favor of the proposal, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. They say the increase in pension costs is unsustainable. The governor’s plan would save $83 billion for local governments over 30 years.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, said this afternoon that lawmakers and the governor have not reached a deal on pension reform.

This is the caucus’ letter to Cuomo:

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Members of the Health Care for All New York coalition continue to criticize members of the Senate Republican majority today, saying the lawmakers are “punting” on setting up a health-insurance exchange in New York. The federal Affordable Care Act requires all states to set up marketplaces where individuals and small businesses can go to purchase insurance.

New York has not acted in a timely fashion to put an exchange in place, said Jess Wisneski, legislative and campaigns director of Citizen Action of New York and a co-founder of Health Care for All New York. If New York doesn’t put an exchange in place, the federal government will set one up for the state.

“So why is this so important? The health-insurance exchange is the go-to place where over a million uninsured New Yorkers will seek good quality affordable coverage, where small businesses will go to seek the quality affordable coverage, starting in 2014,” she said. “And so the exchange, the new marketplace for health insurance, is an extremely important piece so people have the good access to quality affordable care they need.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo included the exchange in his budget proposal for the 2012-13 fiscal year, which starts April 1. The Assembly’s budget resolution also includes provisions for an exchange. The Senate’s does not. GOP Sens. Kemp Hannon of Nassau County and James Seward of Milford, Otsego County, are sponsoring a bill that would set up a panel to study issues surrounding an exchange.

The Senate was poised to vote on a health-care exchange bill last year, but it was pulled because Republican senators had questions they wanted answered before voting on it.

“Our members have expressed concerns about the cost and about the lack of information that we’ve received from the federal government about this plan,” said Scott Reif, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County. “Because of that, they didn’t believe that it would be prudent at this time to move forward.”

The Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation issued a report yesterday that estimated the insurance-coverage provisions of the Affordable Care Act would have a net cost of just less than $1.1 trillion between 2012 and 2021, about $50 less than their estimate a year ago. The totals do not include all the budgetary impacts of the law, the report said.

The number of uninsured New Yorkers has increased significantly in the last five years, said Blair Horner, vice president for advocacy at the American Cancer Society of New York and New Jersey. ”New York knows what to do. There’s a model next door (in Massachusetts), there’s a federal law that will provide money for the state to set it up, but delay can be deadly,” he said. “Delay can be deadly for people with chronic illnesses.”

This is Blair Horner speaking at this morning’s news conference:

Senate Democrats, who are in the minority in their chamber, are accusing the Republican majority of “censoring” 311 bills they planned to bring to committee votes by using a Senate rule.

“All 311 of those bills were pulled out of the committees in which they sat and put in the Rules Committee, which means they were basically taken from a place where they could have seen the light of day and put in a dark vault where the Senate majority hopes they’re never seen or heard from again,” said Sen. Daniel Squadron, D- Brooklyn. “It’s a nice day in Albany today but a very dark day in the Senate chamber and in the halls of the Senate.”

Squadron said the rule was put in place in 2009, when Democrats held the majority, and is meant to “foster some increased transparency” in the Senate. If a bill’s in a committee for a period of time, a senator can file a motion to have the bill heard and voted on in committee.

The bills include the Reproductive Health Act, which would update New York’s abortion law; Microstamping of guns; and a prescription drug affordability act. “It’s a real shame that the Senate majority is so afraid of just having a conversation on issues,” Squadron said.

Sen. Liz Krueger, D-Manhattan, said the move has “stifled” the committee process and will provide cover to Republicans, who will be able to say that they never voted against the bills. ”I don’t know about every Senate Republican, but I would expect any number of them to come out and say, ‘No this is wrong. What is our leadership doing?’” Krueger said.

For their part, Senate Republicans are accusing Democratic senators of abusing the rule that allows lawmakers to file motions for consideration. Senate Democrats have filed 259 such motions since February 21, including 65 last Thursday.

“It’s clear that the Senate Democrats aren’t interested in helping us move New York forward, but would rather bog down the Senate by abusing a rule that was intended to encourage bipartisan cooperation,” Scott Reif, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, R-Nassau County, said in a statement. “The same Senate Democrats who are complaining today ignored the Budget Reform Law when they were in the majority, took negotiations behind closed doors and routinely passed late state budgets—making Albany more dysfunctional than ever.” (more…)