New York lawmakers Monday night passed the final bills needed to complete the expense portion of the state’s budget almost three months after the start of the fiscal year.
The Legislature is expected to vote on the revenue portion of the budget on Thursday. Gov. David Paterson said he would use a line-item veto on 6,900 appropriations that lawmakers added to the budget to restore cuts. On Monday night Paterson vetoed approximately $420 million of education spending in the budget bills.
Most of the budget was passed over the last 13 weeks through extender bills that included budget appropriations that could not be amended by the Legislature, which faced the threat of government shutdown if it rejected the measures.
The Legislature chose to pass budget bills Monday night rather than allow another showdown with Paterson over his inclusion of appropriations in extender bills. Those bills covered education and health care and mental hygiene spending. One part of the budget that was passed on time was debt-service appropriations.
A full tally of the budget spending was not yet available Tuesday. Paterson’s proposed budget would spend $135 billion in fiscal 2011.
