2009 State Budget to be unveiled Tuesday
Story Created:
Dec 15, 2008 at 1:05 PM EST
Story Updated:
Dec 15, 2008 at 6:08 PM EST
ALBANY, N.Y. (WKTV) - Governor David Paterson is preparing for Tuesday's unveiling of his 2009 State Budget proposal.
At a press conference in Utica Monday morning surrounding the Indian reservation cigarette tax, the Governor also talked about what may happen in Albany on Tuesday regarding the budget.
He told a number of state legislators from our area that were in attendance, to get ready to fight - as the battle over money is going to be tough.
The Governor says the state budget deficit is $15.4 billion, adding "It's tripled since last April and it is really as a result of New York being the focus and the epicenter of our national crisis. We have problems here in New York that we haven't had in 80 years and we have deficits that are prohibitive."
He says the only way to the balance the budget is to make cuts. He says he will not propose any tax increases, so it will come down to which state funded programs will be reduced and by how much.
School districts across the state could see their first mid-year reductions in aid since the early 90's.
Local Assemblywoman RoAnn Destito said, "I've talked to the school districts with regards to next year. I am not in favor of mid-year cuts to school and of revenue sharing because that's really passing on to the local governments and local taxing jurisdictions an increase and I'm really trying to avoid any increase on property tax or sales tax."
Senator Joe Griffo of Rome says "we have got to serve notice to all of our local governments, and to educational units too that this is going to be a lean year and they have to make adjustments accordingly not to pass along to the taxpayer."
Besides state legislators in attendance today, so was Utica Mayor David Roefaro who is anxiously awaiting Tuesday's budget news.
Roefaro says "I honestly don't know how much more we can cut back. I cut when we first came into office in anticipation of the economy turning then, and now it's just drastically taken a downturn. I am worried about, I'm not going to say that I'm not, but we're just going to have to wait and see what the Governor does and we'll have to go from there."
We will have team coverage on Tuesday's proceedings from both right here in Utica and in Albany.
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