Budget punts hot button issues

After weeks of debate over whether the state budget would include measures on ethics reform, tuition assistance for undocumented immigrants and a slew of hot-button items, legislators were in the middle of passing a modest series of budget bills as The Press went to print Tuesday night.

Bronx state Sen. Jeff Klein, who leads a group of breakaway Democrats, was the local official who arguably had the most on the line. After November elections left him with a diminished role in the Senate, he went on to launch an ambitious range of expensive policy proposals on everything from new affordable housing funds to a tax break on utility bills.

While Mr. Klein eventually became one of “four men in a room” who had the main say over the budget — the others being Democrats Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie along with Republican Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos — it was not clear whether his initiatives would make it into this year’s budget.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Klein said he did not want to comment until the budget had been passed in full. But with several of the budget bills passed as of Tuesday afternoon, northwest Bronx Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz voiced satisfaction with those measures.

“I think that our speaker negotiated the best possible deal on behalf of the Assembly Democrats,” he said in a phone interview.

Mr. Dinowitz previously called for the state to increase funding to schools by about $2 billion. While the legislature was poised to add $1.6 billion on Tuesday, Mr. Dinowitz called that a victory, saying the governor had only wanted to expand education funding by $1.4 billion.

Mr. Cuomo also appeared to fail at an attempt to tie education funding to a new policy that would base teacher evaluations more on student performance.

“We were successful at least in watering down some of the worst things that the Senate Republicans and the governor wanted to do” Mr. Dinowitz said.

Asked what the budget will contain for his district, he pointed to $2 million allocated to the Bronx Children’s Museum, which has struggled to secure funding for years.