New York State's Budget Deal

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. A one-question riddle, what's bigger in New York State than in Florida, gets criticized as both too big and too small and shows how powerful the suburbs outside New York City are these days? The answer, some of you figured it out, the New York State budget. Here on May 2nd, state lawmakers are finally voting on the budget for the fiscal year that began April 1st after a month of contention over just a few little things bail, housing, charter schools, the MTA trains and buses, Medicaid funding and benefits and pay scales, how much to tax the rich, how much to tax the city versus the suburbs, and more. There was so much that was contentious this year. Here's Governor Hochul announcing the budget agreement in terms almost nobody agrees with.

Governor Hochul: We invested, what we need to invest and let people know they matter. Regardless of where they live in the state of New York, we understand their concerns. They're worried about the safety of their families. They're worried about paying their bills, paying for child care, good education. Now we're building a path of shared prosperity for all New Yorkers and I'm very proud of this budget.

Brian Lehrer: Governor Hochul there on the budget. One thing shows a pattern though, as a headline in Long Island's newspaper Newsday puts it, Suburban Democrats want big changes in Governor Kathy Hochul's budget. With us now are Newsday's Albany bureau chief Yancey Roy, not a descendant of Logan Roy as far as we know, and WNYC's Albany bureau chief Jon Campbell, a meeting of the bureau chiefs. Hi, Jon and Yancey. Thanks for some time this morning. Welcome back to WNYC.

Yancey: Hi, Brian.

Jon: Thanks, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Yancey, I'll start with you. Why emphasize that suburban Democrats want big changes to the budget? For people who may think of this as Republican set of issues, can you explain some of the ways suburban Democrats differed from Democrats from the city?

Yancey: Yes, and I think the context here is that you have to go back to the last couple of years of election cycles in New York and not just the 22 statewide elections with Congress and the state legislature but also 2021 which is known as the local election year where you have things like a county executive and district attorney and county legislatures up for grabs. What you saw is Republicans make big gains on Long Island.

The headline-grabbing stuff was probably with the gains in Congress and, of course, the gains that Republicans made overall in the New York delegation but also Republicans won the county executive race in Nassau County which is a big race locally, they won the DA's office. Then you fast forward to '22 and although they didn't pick up a ton of seats they picked up more state legislative seats on Long Island.

To give you an example of the way this has swung on Long Island in the 2018 blue wave elections, Democrats won six out of nine state senate seats on Long Island. Fast forward that to 2023, Democrats have only two of those nine seats. They also lost seats in the assembly. They went from a total number of Long Island Democrats of 18 down to 12 in just a matter of four years.

You get to the budget and Kathy Hochul's three big proposals, bail changes which the number of suburban Democrats supported rather, a housing compact which had a third rail issue of a state override of local zoning, and an MTA payroll tax, and take the latter two and Long Island Democrats were calling these extinction level events. If the housing compact went through as is, if the MTA payroll tax went as is, they were threatened with continued election losses on Long Island and that's why they felt like they had to really fight back or modify some of these proposals.

Brian Lehrer: Oh that's really interesting because I had seen that phrase "extinction level events" and for people who may have heard that in newscasts or seen it casually in printed media they may have thought that they were referring to the quality of life on Long Island would become extinct, but it wasn't that. You're saying this was the Democratic party was worried that their election prospects would become extinct-

Yancey: That's right.

Brian Lehrer: -if those things went through.

Yancey: Those with long memories remember that 2010 which was after the great Wall Street meltdown one of the measures that New York state took was to impose what's called an MTA payroll tax which is on employers and that directly contributed to the loss of Democratic seats on Long Island and the loss of Democratic control of the state senate which they had to wait until 2018 to get back.

Brian Lehrer: Jon, hang on, I'll get to you in a second. Let me follow up on one of those things that you brought up. We've talked about housing so much on the show in these weeks leading up to this budget agreement and we'll come back to it a little bit of this. About that tax structure for bailing out the MTA from its fiscal woes big employers in the city will now see a small increase in their payroll tax but not those in the suburbs as you were just mentioning. The suburbs, of course, are also served by the MTA meaning the LIRR and Metro North. In Long Island's case, what was the argument that the suburban Democrats were making Long Island Democrats plus Republicans that only the city should get the tax hike and the full responsibility of that bailout should fall on the city's shoulders?

Yancey: The simple argument is you'll kill us politically. We lost seats in 2010 the first time the payroll tax came around and it still resonates as just this electrified term on Long Island. Not just Long Island, we should also mention the Hudson Valley Democrats were pushing against this as well. They had even proposed a legislation to exempt all of the suburban counties from paying the tax. Also, look at it this way, Brian. When Kathy Hochul threw the word MTA payroll tax into the budget proposal, Republicans were licking their chops. They told us things like I can't believe it. We can't wait. This is going to be a big election issue for us because they know it worked well a decade ago or more than a decade ago.

Brian Lehrer: Jon, your story was called, I'm looking for the headline again now but you'll remind me. Oh, here it is. Your article is called Lawmakers start passing NY’s $229B budget. Nobody’s happy about it. Nobody?

Jon: [chuckles] Well, lawmakers are certainly happy that they're passing it in the sense that they will get their paychecks for the last month while the budget's been late. Their paychecks have been withheld as per state law. Once this budget's passed, finally, today or tomorrow then they'll get that pay release. They're certainly happy about that part but in terms of the content of the budget nobody is really out there selling this as a big victory. The governor she tried but she lost her housing plan.

That was a huge huge priority for her was this housing plan that she says would have created 800,000 units over the next decade. Housing policy completely fell out of the budget. Lawmakers progressives aren't happy about the minimum wage increase. They wanted to see it go to 21, 25 and really it's going to go to $17 in New York city and Long Island and Westchester and then it'll be tied to inflation. They're not happy about that. They're not happy that there wasn't an increase on the tax on the rich. There's no income tax increase whatsoever. Nobody seems completely happy about this. There's more of an error of resignation as lawmakers are passing this more than anything else.

Brian Lehrer: Here's the clip of the State Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris of Queens putting his spin on the budget, consistent with what you just said. Here's Gianaris.

Michael Gianaris: I think we did the best we could to minimize the harm from policies we did not agree with and to get things moving forward for the people of New York.

Brian Lehrer: To get things moving forward for the people of New York was almost the afterthought there. The first thing that he cited was to prevent policies from getting through that he thought were harmful. Here we have a Democratic supermajority in the state legislature and a Democratic governor and it sounds like they're just playing defense.

Jon: Yes. That was me talking to Senator Gianaris yesterday in the halls of the capitol and I just asked him what's your takeaway from this budget, what are you taking away and that's what he said. There was a lot of defense here. Democratic lawmakers did not like the governor's bail proposal. She wanted to remove what's known as the least restrictive standard from the bail laws. They gave in on that, but they held very, very strong on the housing compact that Yancey talked about. That was completely removed. They held strong on some other things, but basically they were on defense and the governor was trying to wait them out and push this past the budget deadline, we're a month past it, and ultimately, we got to this compromise. The budget's a month late and especially on the legislative side, nobody seems to really love this budget.

Brian Lehrer: Yancey, from the Long Island perspective, even though it was in a way Long Island Democrats and Hudson Valley Democrats who won things, it was by blocking things. Maybe to the victors go not a lot of spoils, but a version of a lot of damage as they saw it. Even on Long Island and in the Hudson Valley suburbs, people would say they avoided harm more than did good. Do you think that's accurate?

Yancey: Well, I think it's a mix of some things. Look, the headline items have been what we've been talking about, bail and housing and payroll taxes, but a budget contains thousands and thousands of things and certainly there's huge school aid increases, which Long Island legislators and a lot of legislators around the state will go back home and cheer about, that's one thing for sure. There's other little things, little items that don't always rise to the top of the headlines, but there are little goodies in there. There's a new entity or rather authorization to try to attack the Suffolk County wastewater and sewage problem. There's an important burial grounds provision, which is important to the Montaukett Indians and other Native Americans.

There's a huge $500,000,000 loan for renovations of Belmont Racetrack, which is controversial, but was backed by the Long Island delegation. There are a lot of things in there beyond the headline items. Plus also, when it comes to some of these items, like whether it's bail or school aid, there's sometimes is a response of not enough. If you raise the minimum wage somewhat, it's not going to be as much as some advocates want. If you change bail law somewhat, it's not going to ever be enough for some of the critics of it. There is some of that context that that happens all the time in the state budget, that from Left or Right folks say something isn't enough.

Brian Lehrer: Here's an example of something that the governor is touting as a victory, but you just mentioned it as something that will get criticized by some as not enough of a victory. Here's the governor on the increase in the minimum wage.

Governor Hochul: There are nearly 900,000 minimum wage earners in New York State, more likely women, more likely people of color and many are single moms. For them this will be a lifeline.

Brian Lehrer: Jon, how much of a lifeline? How much is the minimum wage changing in New York State and who's happy or not happy about it?

Jon: Currently, the minimum wage in New York City, Long Island and Westchester County is $15 an hour, in the rest of the state it's $14.20. Next year, January 1st, that will increase to $16 an hour in New York City, Long Island and Westchester, and $15 an hour in the rest of the state. Then it'll go up 50 cents a year until 2026, and it'll be $17 "Downstate" and $16 Upstate. Then from there, actually, and this is important too, it'll be tied to the rate of inflation. In theory, that'll take it out of the hands of the legislature, that'll take it out of the hands of the governor. It's always been used as a political football over the years. In theory now this will be tied to that, but they can change the law at any time.

We should also mention too, last night, we finally got the actual bill language for that proposal. There's a couple "off ramps" that would override the inflation adjustment in 2027 and beyond. That's basically if unemployment's too high or if the number of jobs in New York decreases, then actually the state could block those inflation increases for the minimum wage. That's something we just learned last night. There's a lot of things that progressives don't like. They wanted a bigger initial increase, especially with the boost in inflation that we've seen recently, they wanted a bigger initial hike to account for that, and they got a smaller one. It's a compromise between the governor who didn't want an initial hike at all and the progressives that wanted this bigger hike, but the progressives really, really don't seem to be very pleased about it.

Brian Lehrer: Do you have a specific metric on how much unemployment there would need to be in New York State for the minimum wage hike not to follow inflation?

Jon: I do. I have it in front of me, but it is dense. I could read it to you, and it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. I'm trying to make sense of it myself.

Brian Lehrer: You mean it's not like if the unemployment rate is more than 6%, and it's that simple, no, apparently not.

Jon: No, it's the three month moving average of the seasonally adjusted New York state unemployment rate as determined by the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It is not particularly straightforward, but essentially, if the unemployment rate is high, then there's an off ramp here to block the minimum wage inflation increase in 2027 and beyond.

Brian Lehrer: Wait, Eric in Brooklyn is calling in with some victories in the budget that he sees. Eric, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Eric Weltman: Good morning. This is Eric Weltman. I'm a Brooklyn-based senior organizer with Food & Water Watch. Food & Water Watch and our allies are proud that we scored two significant victories for the climate in this budget. First of all, we passed the nation's first ban on fracked gas in new buildings, the statewide ban on fracked gas and other fossil fuels in new buildings. We also passed the bill Public Renewables Act, which is landmark legislation, Green New Deal legislation, that will significantly ramp up the production of renewable energy by the New York Power Authority. It's a huge step forward for public power, creating good jobs, while producing affordable, reliable, clean energy.

I will note this is not necessarily to the credit of Governor Hochul. Food & Water Watch and our allies, New York Communities for Change, DSA, dozens of organizations fought tooth and nail to pass these landmark climate bills, and again, are to the credit of New York's powerful climate movement and not so much to Governor Hochul, much less Speaker Heastie, who did just about everything they could do to block these incredible achievements for the climate that should be models for the rest of the nation.

Brian Lehrer: Really interesting. Thank you for chiming in with that. Listeners, anybody else who has a comment or a question about any aspect of the New York State budget, now that the details have finally been released, and the voting is taking place, I think, as we speak in Albany, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 for WNYC and Gothamist Albany bureau chief Jon Campbell and Newsday's Albany bureau chief Yancey Roy. Yancey, do you happen to have anything else on climate or anything else environmental from the budget that you've got top of mind?

Yancey: Well, there's always a lot of local important projects that get funded through various streams of money. A main one is called Environmental Protection Fund. EPF is a shorthand lingo in Albany. These are important to local communities. It might not be the top of the headline story, but you might have money for, for example, the Peconic Estuary Fund out on Long Island. There's always these odds and ends little goodies that you find combing through the budget. One of the neat ones that I've found, there's money earmarked for Nassau County for what's called an aquatic weed harvester to help with weed control along waterfronts and other things. Again, there's all sorts of things like that, that come out that, again, don't necessarily race to the top of the headlines, but are important for local communities.

Brian Lehrer: We're going to take a break, then we're going to continue. We'll get more into the housing issue and what happens next now that they failed to pass any affordable housing provision in this budget. They may get another bite at that apple between now and June, the end of the legislative session altogether, but we'll ask our guests how. Jon, we'll talk about this after the break, too, I was reading not only your article, but the comments under your article by readers and for all we've been talking about progressive unhappiness with this budget, maybe you saw some of how conservatives are shooting many slings and arrows at this budget. We'll get into some of that as well and comparing it to Florida in particular. Stay with us. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue to break down the details finally now known on so many major policy items in the New York state fiscal year 2024 budget, which is finally being voted on now in Albany. We're talking to WNYC and Gothamist, Albany Bureau Chief Jon Campbell, and Newsday's Albany Bureau Chief, Yancey Roy. Newsday, for those of you who don't know, is basically Long Island's newspaper so getting an island perspective on this, as well as statewide from Yancey and from Jon.

Jon, reading the comments page below your Gothamist version of the story, some conservatives posted unhappiness with the size of the budget $229 billion as being too big. They point to Florida, that has a larger population, but a state budget half the size, and they say no wonder people are moving there and leaving here. Why is New York's budget as big as it is, and can you put it in national perspective, tax dollars spent per person compared to other states let's say?

Jon: Well, New York and Florida are always the two they can compare to each other. New York's budget is more than $100 billion more than Florida's budget. Basically, a big driver of that is Medicaid funding. The New York state spends a lot on Medicaid. Medicaid's this federal state program where you have basically a menu of options and you can choose which options to provide to your citizens and which ones not to, and which ones are too costly to, or maybe which ones you want to have. New York takes that menu and checks all the boxes, and says we'll take all of it while Florida doesn't. They spend considerably less on Medicaid, but their citizens have fewer options through the Medicaid program.

Florida didn't do the Medicaid expansion after the Affordable Care Act, New York did, so there's a huge gap in Medicaid funding, and there's a huge gap in school funding too. In New York State the state spending portion of the budget is roughly $125 billion, the rest is generally federal. About half of that money in New York State is spent on Medicaid and school aid alone.

New York spends a ton on education, on healthcare funding, while Florida doesn't spend nearly as much. That is really the main driver of the two differences there. Really what it comes down to is do you want to be a big government state, or do you want to be a small government state? New York over the years has chosen to be a big government state while Florida has gone in the opposite direction. I don't have national per-person numbers right in front of me, but that is generally where the biggest difference comes in between the New York budget and the Florida budget.

Brian Lehrer: One of the conservatives posting under your article said, "41% of New York State residents are on Medicaid. That's unbelievable. How could we be using tax dollars to pay for the healthcare 41% of the people. It must be too generous." On the other hand, progressives are lamenting that the Medicaid budget in this new agreement does not include enough more for the safety net hospitals, for example, that serve poor people, doesn't have enough reimbursements to keep doctors and other staff and supplies in those hospitals, and staff happily working there, not short staffed, and taking care of the people who are the patients there. Do you see that kind of tension?

Jon: There's always that kind of tension. There's also tension progressives would want Medicaid for all. They want to expand to a more universal system of health care. Yancey said earlier, there's thousands of things in this budget, but there were a lot of health care related issues that were negotiated. There's an increase in Medicaid reimbursement rates, which is something that hospitals and medical providers have been pushing for for a long time. It's about a 7.5% increase that goes beyond what the Governor proposed in her original budget which was about 5%. Our colleague Caroline Lewis, she wrote us a story about the safety net hospitals. They were looking for some further incentives in the budget. They didn't seem to get that in the final agreement. There always are a ton of healthcare issues in the budget, and this year was no exception.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a healthcare-related caller, I think. Angel in Glen Cove, you're on WNYC. Hi, Angel.

Angel: Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking my call.

Brian Lehrer: Sure. What you got?

Angel: I'm really involved in immigrant rights in the state. One of the things that didn't make the budget, which is so upsetting for the immigrant community is access to medical insurance for undocumented immigrants. If Governor Hochul would have added coverage for all to the budget, it would have covered 255,000 undocumented immigrants that are currently left out, and many of them that are battling cancer, difficult problems. This is not the only immigrant rights issue that has been left out of the budget, so really question how Governor Hochul feels about immigrants in the State of New York.

Brian Lehrer: What would you say to listeners who might be hearing you and think, "Well, this is about undocumented immigrants. Somebody who's not officially even allowed to be here, isn't here legally, is asking us to pay for their health care through Medicaid." What would you say to that person to argue for the cause?

Angel: I can say a thousand things because I've been doing this work for so long. One of the most important things is that undocumented people in the state they pay as equal people back to anywhere else where we don't get any of the services back. Historically, the New York State has been a state that has been welcoming to immigrants. It's been shifting a little bit recently, but we were hoping that Governor Hochul will take a stand and really stand for the undocumented immigrants really, but that's not the case with this budget.

Brian Lehrer: Angel, thank you for your call. Call us again. Since he was from Glen Cove, Yancey, I'll throw that one to you if you have anything to add about the context of how immigrants including undocumented immigrants, and including health care for undocumented immigrants fared in this budget.

Yancey: Well, I think in the political sense of what the budget fight has been about, I think you'd have to say that it did not rise to the level where it was in the same conversation, if you will, about some of the other issues such as minimum wage and the housing, and bail and school aid, and all of those, et cetera, and also SUNY tuition and some of the others that have been up there.

It just didn't seem to have as much political momentum this year as you might have had just a few years ago when you were talking about slightly different things, whether it was driver's licenses, or what have you. There are a lot of people who are fighting for those issues, but I just don't think politically it ever quite burst through into the conversation where it was going to make it into the final budget.

Brian Lehrer: Regarding immigrants, or that wave of people coming to the city in recent months, who we tend to call migrants, Jon, that was Mayor Adams's number one priority in this New York State budget, he said several times, and that was getting at least $1 billion dollars from the state to help with the resettling costs for the 50,000, or whatever the number is now, migrants who've come here or have been sent here by Texas, or however they arrived from Venezuela and Central America just in the last year or so. What do you got?

Jon: He got $1 billion dollars. That was something that the Governor proposed early in her budget and lawmakers generally went along with it and that was included in the final agreement. It's not carte blanche. It's not just a blank check, so to speak, but there is significant state funding to assist with the asylum seekers and with the cost of sheltering asylum seekers. That was one that was generally-- It wasn't one that was a huge debate in Albany. The Governor proposed it originally in February, and lawmakers generally went in line. There were some changes in the final language but, no, New York City is expected to get a big influx of state cash to help with that, but they will say, and the state will say they need more help from the federal government as well. That has been really at the center of the mayor's argument for more than a year now, or about a year now, I should say, and still you're going to hear that from the mayor, and you're going to hear that from the governor going forward.

Brian Lehrer: Another health-related call, Bobby in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC. Hi, Bobby.

Bobby: Hi. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What you got for us?

Bobby: Hello?

Brian Lehrer: Yes, Bobby, we got you.

Bobby: Sorry. Fair pay for home care. Governor Hochul last year said that $3 an hour above minimum wage was just the start. She danced it backwards in her budget. It stayed backwards. It went back to $1.55 an hour extra. This is not a minimum-wage job. She also refuses to look at the insurance companies, the managed long-term care companies who made $722 million in profits meant for wages. That's systemic corruption, I think.

By the way, 41% of New Yorkers are on Medicaid. Many of those folks are in long-term care, home care, or nursing homes. We have an aging population in this state, and also people with disabilities. We believe that the New York carrying majority that while Governor Hochul broke the glass ceiling to be the first governor, she just set the floor for home care workers and the shortage will just continue.

Brian Lehrer: Bobby, thank you very much. That was one, Jon, that we had covered on the show previously. Home health aids and the shortage in New York state and what's a fair wage for a home health aid given the intimate personal and difficult work that they do, and so it sounds like the wage hike that was approved for them is disappointing to the advocates for that.

Jon: What happened is last year the governor and lawmakers approved a wage hike for home care workers, people who help with bathing or chores or housekeeping, things like that for people who are still in their homes. That was supposed to get to a point where the home care worker wage would be at least $3 more than the minimum wage, the statewide minimum wage. But then what happens when you increase the statewide minimum wage? That ate into the planned increases they had for the home care wage.

They had to adjust the home care wage. Now it'll be when the wage goes to $16 next year in New York City and Long Island and Westchester, when the minimum wage, the home care wage will go to $18.55, and then it'll go to $19.10, $19.65. They adjusted the path there, but some home care workers aren't happy with it because they don't get to that $3 differential as soon as they would've otherwise.

Brian Lehrer: Yancey, I know you got to go. Let me get one closing thought from you on affordable housing. As we were discussing, people didn't like the state taking over the zoning rules for local communities, and that's a big reason that Hochul's 800,000 new affordable housing unit construction over the next number of years failed. Do you think there could have been any path to yes from a Long Island perspective on building a lot more affordable housing, that density around Long Island railroad stations the governor wanted to help ease prices regionwide, is there any path to yes, because they're going to try again, I guess, between now and the end of the session in June?

Yancey: Yes, a couple of things there. I'm sure that there's somewhere a path. Look at some of the counter proposals and things that were traded off during the discussions, which we didn't get too much into, but there was an offer to start with a carrot approach as opposed to a stick, which was offer some incentives, state aid to more municipalities, let them try that first and see if they meet their goals now. Of course, critics say incentives history shows that that doesn't necessarily work, but there were proposals like that. There were proposals like, okay, push the deadline for meeting the housing goals back a couple of years, give it more time, or make it carrot and stick, try aid, and if you don't make the goal with aid, then you come down with some mandate.

I think folks realize that housing is an issue. I think, oh, the Long Island delegations will tell you, yes, housing is an issue. I certainly don't know what the final result or the path would be, but I think some of what happened here is that the governor came out with the proposal in the budget, but they didn't walk it out with legislators ahead of time as to what they were proposing and what their goals were and where they wanted to get. That's part of why it went flat this time around. If there's an echo there in the Hochul administration, it might remind you of a little bit of what happened with their first nominee to be chief judge of New York, Hector LaSalle, who was eventually voted down by the Senate. That was a nomination that they didn't do any footwork ahead of time before making that nomination to see how well that may or may not go over, and eventually it went down.

I think that in the housing, there's somewhat of a similar theme there that they came out with it, and even a lot of folks like the idea, but in terms of making political inroads and seeing how it would be received, there wasn't enough time for that. We've only got a month left for the session because the budget has dragged on so long. We've only got about four more weeks or so. It might be hard to see a major housing policy get through in those short four weeks. More likely, I'm guessing it comes back around next year when the session and the budget starts again. It could be a surprise, but four weeks is a short time to get through a major policy like that.

Brian Lehrer: Yancey, I know you have to jump, I'll let you go and I'm going to keep Jon for one closing question. Newsday's, Albany Bureau Chief Yancey Roy, thanks so much for joining us with so many details today.

Yancey: Thanks, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Jon Campbell, before you go, I see your reporting this morning a wrinkle in the story that you and I talked about last week that was emerging from the budget, that there's going to be this experiment in the city with one bus line in each of the five boroughs is going to become free for an experimental period of time to see how that works out, and then maybe they'll expand it to all the MTA buses in the city, or maybe they'll decide it didn't work for whatever reason. There's a breaking piece of that this morning that's a little different than we first thought. What is that?

Jon: When we talked about this last week, there was a lot of me saying, "Well, we don't have all the details yet." Well, now we have the details, and they aren't quite exactly how Governor Hochul laid him out on Thursday when she announced this in what she called a conceptual budget deal. Basically, the big difference here is that the governor said it was going to be a two-year pilot program where there's one fair free bus in each borough. It's really looking like it's going to be more six months to a year rather than two years.

I talked to Mike Gianaris, the Deputy Senate Leader who we heard from earlier, and he said, "Well, part of that's because the federal law essentially limits these types of pilot programs to a year, a maximum of a year if you don't do an environmental review." An environmental review can take a long time. That would push this back, so the way it's written in the law is that the pilot program, once it launches, and once there's a free bus in each borough, it'll end after six months to a year depending on what the MTA decides. It is going to be up to the MTA to decide which bus in each borough will be free. Basically, they've got 150 days to put that in place.

Brian Lehrer: Any criteria emerging yet for which bus line in each borough will be chosen? Is it the ones that go through the lowest income communities or something like that to make them free? Do we know?

Jon: There are four pieces, four things, four factors that the MTA is going to have to consider. I'm mostly just reading this from the bill right now. One is fare evasion, ridership, service adequacy and equity for low-income and economically disadvantaged communities. Yes, they have to consider how it would help economically disadvantaged communities. Then also access to commercial areas and places where people are employed. Those are the things that the MTA is going to have to weigh when it picks which bus route to make free in each borough.

Brian Lehrer: It's weird to me on first blush that it would require an environmental review in particular if it went on for more than six months to a year because it's the same bus lines traveling the same routes that they travel now. They just wouldn't be charging fares in some of the places. Why would that change any environmental impact?

Jon: The short answer there, I'm not sure. I don't know exactly what part of the federal-- This is what the lawmakers are telling us.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, it's federal.

Jon: This was a surprise last night when it popped up in what we call the big ugly in Albany in this big huge 175-page bill that has dozens and dozens of different measures in it. This was a surprise.

Brian Lehrer: Bureaucracy. WNYC's Albany Bureau Chief Jon Campbell and he was comparing notes with Newsday's, Albany Bureau Chief Yancey Roy. Jon, thanks as always. Budget season is finally over. I'll bet you're incredibly relieved.

Jon: It's not over till it's over. We're getting there.

Brian Lehrer: Talk to you soon.

Jon: Thanks, Brian.

 

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