Paterson: Budget Spending is Basically Flat

New York, NY —

Governor Paterson says the state's new state budget agreement does not represent an increase in spending.

Republican lawmakers have criticized the $131 billion agreement reached Friday because it includes close to $10 billion more than last year's budget.

Speaking on WWRL this morning, Paterson says those dollars are a direct result of a multi-year infusion of federal stimulus dollars.

PATERSON: The state had to view it as an appropriation. Therefore, there's about $9.2 billion in spending that came from the federal government that we could take or we couldn't take. But we had to list it as an increase in spending.

The governor will be in Harlem this morning to announce a $5 million project for homeless senior citizens. He'll also be on Long Island today to announce regional recovery projects.