The late-night scene beneath the New York State Capitol was unusual, even by Albany standards.
Lawmakers from the Assembly and Senate, having finally passed the state’s $254 billion budget on Thursday evening, streamed down to the Capitol’s lower levels to collect their long overdue paychecks from the payroll office.
In New York, state legislators do not receive their salaries if the budget lapses, as it did on April 1. But after five weeks without a budget or a paycheck, both arrived on Thursday.
Lawmakers, however, were not the only ones to benefit from the budget’s official passage.
Gov. Kathy Hochul was quick to celebrate expansions of the child tax credit, more school funding and a litany of other programs she said would make the state more affordable.
Here’s a look at some of the budget’s more interesting provisions.
Legislators helped themselves
A quirk of state government is that lawmakers have the power to write or amend laws that regulate their own actions, no recusal required. This year, legislators took full advantage of that power, crafting several significant changes to how they can collect outside income and raise money.
In 2022, lawmakers raised their salaries by $32,000 to $142,000 while also placing a $35,000 cap on outside income. The Albany Times-Union reported this year that nearly 40 legislators had outside incomes above the limit.
The income cap was supposed to go into effect this year, after several unsuccessful court challenges. But lawmakers included a provision in the budget that would delay enforcement for two years.
Along those lines, legislators altered the state’s campaign finance matching system. Donations larger than $250 are currently disqualified from the matching program; the agreement provides for the state to match the first $250 of any donation up to $1,000.
Elected officials can now also hold onto $50,000 for future campaigns. These tweaks and others appear geared to help incumbents.
Lawmakers also created a $10 million slush fund to pay for private lawyers if state officials were targeted by the Trump administration.
You get a refund, you get a raise
Ms. Hochul has been eager to trumpet her “inflation rebate” — $2 billion that will be disbursed to New Yorkers in checks of up to $400 per family, $200 per individual. But the budget also contains a number of other financial benefits for people across the state.
The per-day pay rate for jurors in state court, for example, is being raised to $72 dollars, nearly doubling the current amount. This is the first time that New York has raised the per diem rate for jurors since 1995, when Gov. George E. Pataki signed legislation that raised rates for those doing their civic duty from $15 to $40 over a three-year period.
And some workers at LaGuardia and Kennedy Airports were given a broad benefits-and-wages package that could help to address some of the staffing shortages that have plagued air travel.
Assistance for online shoppers
It’s a familiar frustration for online shoppers: a product that’s nearly impossible to return, or a subscription that’s nearly impossible to cancel.
New York’s budget includes new measures to assist shoppers, including a mandate that businesses provide transparent refund-and-return policies. The state will also require companies to offer clear instructions for terminating subscriptions, as well as advance notices of subscription renewals and their cost.
The state is also tightening regulations on “buy now, pay later” companies like Affirm and Klarna. These firms will need a license from the Department of Financial Services, which requires companies to follow state laws governing advertising, interest rates and debt collection.
State troopers can be older and prison guards younger
One of the biggest and most disruptive developments in Albany this year was a wave of wildcat strikes among corrections officers, which led Ms. Hochul to call in about 6,000 National Guard troops to oversee the state’s prisons. About 2,000 officers were fired as a result of the unsanctioned strikes, exacerbating an already profound staffing shortfall. The state currently has 4,500 fewer corrections officers than the budget allows.
Ms. Hochul and legislative leaders tried to address the problem in the new budget, which includes language allowing younger people to become corrections officers and removing state residency requirements. The budget also allows for the potential closure of up to three state prisons by next April.
Another change raises the maximum age of State Police recruits; they can now be as old as 43 when they join, up from 39.
A continued crackdown on artificial intelligence
The State Legislature has been looking for more ways to regulate artificial intelligence as it becomes more ubiquitous in our lives.
The budget includes a provision requiring A.I. chatbots to be able to detect when people seem to be expressing suicidal thoughts.
The New York Times reported in October on a case in Florida, in which the mother of a 14-year-old boy said her son had become obsessed with a chatbot on Character.AI, a role-playing app, before his death. Now chatbots must remind users every three hours that they are not communicating with humans.
Lawmakers also altered child pornography laws to outlaw the creation and distribution by A.I. of material featuring minors. They also added almost $100 million in funding for ongoing A.I. research at state universities.
