Plugged In @ Hinman Straub – April 5, 2019

What’s Inside

  • Fiscal Year 2019-20 Budget Passes
  • Legislature Raises Age of Tobacco Purchasing to 21
  • STAR Rebate Program Changes
  • Statewide Crash of Online English Exams
  • Attorney General Announces Lawsuit Against New York City Stem Cell Clinic
  • Updates, Reminders, and Links
  • Coming Up

Fiscal Year 2019-2020 Budget Passes

Early on Sunday, March 31, Governor Cuomo and the Legislature reached an agreement on a new state budget, just prior to the April 1 budget deadline. Legislators completed voting on budget legislation later in the day.

The 2019-2020 state budget totals $175.5 billion, maintains a 2% spending cap for the ninth year, and eliminates a $2.3 billion projected deficit. The plan increases education aid by nearly $1 billion, includes several measures intended to increase access to voting and raise major capital assistance for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Significant provisions of the SFY 2019-2020 state budget include the following:

 Major Actions:

Makes the 2% property tax cap permanent.

  • Creates a commission to implement public campaign financing for legislative and statewide offices, authorizing up to $100 million annually.
  • $10 million is appropriated to implement early voting, and the budget requires the State Board of Elections to establish an online voter registration system, and to transmit voter registration applications to local boards of election. Voting hours would be expanded upstate to begin at 6:00 A.M.
  • Increase from 2 hours to 3 hours the amount of time an employee may take off to vote.
  • Eliminates cash bail for misdemeanors and non-violent felonies, and a new requirement that police officers must issue desk appearance tickets to most people charged with misdemeanors and Class E felonies, rather than making a custodial arrest.
  • The enacted budget provides new safeguards for public sector unions and extending Janus protections to local governments and guarantees the right to organize and collectively bargain.

 Revenue Actions – The new budget included a number of provisions to impose new taxes and increase revenue, including:

  • In addition to administrative reforms of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the new budget includes new revenue to support MTA operations and improvements, including:
  • “Central Business District Tolling” (AKA Congestion Pricing) of vehicles south of 60thStreet in Manhattan, projected to raise $15 billion.
  • A 4.15% tax on mansions on the sale of properties valued at $25 million, estimated to yield $365 million annually.
  • An internet sales tax, to generate $160 million for local governments and $320 million for the MTA.
  • Establishes a conditional tax on carried interest, the share of profits that the general partners of private equity and hedge funds receive as compensation.
  • Enacts an excise tax on opioids.
  • Imposes a special tax on passenger car rentals outside of the metropolitan commuter transportation district.
  • Enacts a supplemental tax on vapor products, with the revenue deposited into the health care reform act resource fund.
  • Authorizes Westchester County to impose an additional rate of sales and compensating use tax.

 Environment:

  • The new budget includes $300 million for the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF), level funding over SFY 2018-2019. The EPF provides funding for environmental programs such as land acquisition, farmland protection, invasive species prevention and eradication, enhanced recreational access, water quality improvement, and environmental justice.
  • Lawmakers reached agreement to ban plastic carryout bags and authorize a local fee on paper carryout bags, effective March 1, 2020. Various types of plastic bags would be exempt, including bags used to contain uncooked meat or fish, bulk food items, carry prescription drugs and used to deliver newspapers. Trash bags and plastic carryout bags used by a restaurant are also exempt, as well as food storage and garment bags. A county or city may opt-in to impose a five-cent fee on each paper carryout bag used at retail, with three cents going to the state’s Environmental Protection Fund, and the other two cents going to the locality.

Economic Development:

  • Grants the Commissioner of Transportation authority to enter into agreements with fiber optic utilities for use and occupancy of the state right of way.
  • Extends the Empire State Film Production Credit and Empire State Film Post Production Credit for two years.

Criminal Justice:

  • Enacts a new requirement that every entity that employs police or peace officers adopt a model law enforcement “use of force” policy. These policies would include information on current law regarding use of force by police officers, and guidelines regarding excessive use of force, conflict prevention and resolution. The head of a law enforcement agency would be required to report instances of the excessive use of force to the State Division of Criminal Justice Services.
  • Reforms the State’s discovery process to require that both prosecutors and defendants share all information in their possession well in advance of trial. Defendants will also be allowed the opportunity to review whatever evidence is in the prosecution’s possession prior to pleading guilty to a crime

Legislature Raises Age of Tobacco Purchasing to 21

This week, the Senate acted on a measure that would raise the age to legally purchase tobacco and vapor products. The bill has already passed the Assembly and now awaits delivery by the Assembly to the Governor for signature or veto. The bill would ban the sale, statewide, of all tobacco and vapor products to anyone younger than 21. Currently, counties are given the ability to pass local laws raising the age to 21 and many have done so. This bill will mandate a uniform age across the state.

Cuomo said:

“This year I proposed raising the minimum age for tobacco sales to 21 to help stamp out teen smoking and protect New Yorkers. The lifelong health effects of tobacco cannot be overstated and in New York we are committed to doing everything in our power to keep tobacco products out of the hands of young people. I commend the Assembly and now the Senate, including Senator Diane Savino and Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal, for joining us in this effort, and I look forward to signing this lifesaving legislation.”

STAR Rebate Program Changes

Substantial changes to the STAR rebate program were included in the budget this year, altering how some recipients will receive their rebate going forward. The program, as originally designed, allowed those who were income eligible to receive a reduction in the amount of school taxes they would be required to pay. In recent years, changes have been made that would modify how that rebate would be distributed to qualifying new homeowners. Those changes stipulated that any newly eligible homeowner who purchased a home after August 2015 would receive a check from the state for their STAR rebate, as opposed to a reduction in the amount owed.

A provision in the budget builds on that prior change by increasing the number of people who would be switched over to the direct check rebate model. The change provides that anyone in the STAR rebate program who earns between $250,000 to $500,000 per year, regardless of when they purchased their home, will now be converted to a rebate check. The only individuals left receiving the rebate as originally drafted will be homeowners earning less than $250,000 per year, who bought their homes prior to August 2015. All others will be converted to the direct check rebate model.

The budget also creates an incentive to voluntarily switch to a direct check, for those not mandated, by increasing the benefit by 2% for those receiving a check, while keeping benefits for those in the original program flat.

Statewide Crash of Online English Exams

On Tuesday, the statewide English exams for grades 3 through 8 were disrupted by computer glitches throughout the system. Some students received system error notifications, while others were unable to log into the online system at all. This is the second year in a row where online test takers had to deal with glitches and generally similar issues. This year, the problems were more pronounced due to the increase in districts participating in the online format. The State Education Department has said that schools that wish to go back to the paper version of the test may do so and that they are working with the Minnesota-based vendor, Questar, to address the issues. Additionally, future test times will be staggered to avoid system overload.

Statement from SED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia:

First and foremost, I would like to thank students, parents, teachers and administrators for their continued patience and support as we work through the difficulties that occurred this week with computer-based testing. I regret the hardship these difficulties have placed on school communities. I understand the changes we made may have presented unforeseen challenges. As a former school and district leader, I know the logistical burdens these shifts have caused, and I share your frustration. I thank school leaders for accommodating these necessary adjustments. While I would have liked to continue as planned, these changes were necessary to minimize additional adverse impacts to our school communities.

As we have done from the start, we will ensure no school is unfairly penalized for participating in computer-based testing. A thorough comparability analysis will be done to review the student computer-based results and paper-based results. We will make the appropriate adjustments to student scores as we did last year.

I am happy to report computer-based testing has gone well today. This morning, nearly 73,000 students participated in CBT. District and school leaders should continue with grades 5 and 8 computer-based testing tomorrow, as announced yesterday. On Monday, all schools may resume CBT as they choose and continue for the remainder of the testing period through April 12.

As always, I appreciate the hard work and dedication of our students, parents, teachers and administrators to implement our state assessments each year.

Attorney General Announces Lawsuit Against New York City Stem Cell Clinic

Attorney General Letitia James today announced a lawsuit filed against Park Avenue Stem Cell, a New York City for-profit stem cell clinic, and its managing doctor, Dr. Joel B. Singer, M.D., for allegedly engaging in fraudulent and illegal advertising regarding its stem cell procedures.

The lawsuit alleges that the clinic falsely advertised their ability to treat a number of diseases with a patients own stem cells. The clinic charged as much as $4,000 per procedure to patients, with many patients paying for multiple procedures. The Attorney General’s office said that while stem cells have a promising future, there is currently no adequate scientific substantiation that stem cells can effectively treat any of the diseases the clinic advertised. It is also alleged that the clinic falsely claimed that their procedures were FDA-approved.

The Attorney General said:

“Misleading vulnerable consumers who are desperate to find a treatment for serious and painful medical conditions is unacceptable, unlawful, and immoral. We will continue to investigate these types of clinics that shamelessly add to the suffering of these consumers by charging them thousands of dollars for treatments that they know are unproven.”

Updates, Reminders, and Links

City & State NY’s weekly Winners & Losers here.

 How the State Budget will impact your wallet, for better or worse.

The Legislature eyes an aggressive post-budget agenda.

Driver of Schoharie limo tragedy had significant amount of marijuana in system.

Governor releases a women’s salary negotiating guide.

Coming Up

The Board of Regents will next meet on April 8 and 9.

Senate Higher Education Committee will hold a public hearing to explore ways to provide oversight of for-profit schools at 10:00am on April 10 in Albany (Hearing Room A, LOB).

The Public Service Commission will hold its next meeting on April 18.

Senate Finance Committee will hold a public hearing on the issue of divesting the NYS Common Retirement Fund from fossil fuels as outlined in S.2126 / A.1536 at 10:00am on April 30 in Albany (Hearing Room A, LOB).

JCOPE will hold its next meeting on April 30th.