Get the best experience and stay connected to your community with our Spectrum News app. Learn More
Continue in Browser
Get hyperlocal forecasts, radar and weather alerts.
Please enter a valid zipcode.
Save
Gov. Kathy Hochul released a $252 billion budget proposal Tuesday to extend a higher tax rate for New York millionaires for five years and give school districts funding to regulate student cell phone use.
Hochul’s fourth executive budget proposal increases spending 3.6% and has a total state operating funds of $143.8 billion, which reflect a 7.9% increase, budget officials said.
The governor wants New Yorkers who make over $1.1 million annually to continue to pay a higher income tax rate through 2032 — or an extension of five more years to help close outyear spending gaps. The higher tax rate for millionaires first imposed in 2021 was set to expire in 2027.
"We’re extending the high-income surcharge," state Budget Director Blake Washington told Spectrum News 1. "If you were looking at our financial plan in October, you would see a cliff. That cliff is no longer there for 2028 and those resources carry forward and that, too, bolsters the financial plan."
The governor’s budget includes over $13 million to reimburse school districts for costs to implement rules to limit cell phone use during the school day.
The state has estimated budget gaps of $6.5 billion in 2027, $9.8 billion in 2028 and $11 billion in 2029 under Hochul’s spending plan.
It includes:
Washington said the state’s $3.5 billion surplus was boosted by higher-than-expected peronal income tax receipts largely funds the governor’s tax proposals.
School aid
Hochul wants at least a 2% increase for the 311 school districts that would not get an increase in aid under her formula proposal.
"Everybody gets something and I think that we’re responding to some of the Rockefeller report," Budget Director Washington said. "I know that this will be a discussion with the Legislature, but we feel like this is a place of minimum disruption but also providing for the current law level of school aid across the board."
Medicaid spending
"A handful of other states have pursued this financial mechanism, so we’re consciously optimistic that it goes forward," Washington said.
It’s unclear how much funding the state will see from the temporary tax under President Donald Trump, who took office Monday.
Washington said the state’s planned changes to CDPAP will save $500 million once fully implemented.
Mental health
Higher education
