The extraordinary session of the State Legislature -- called by the Governor to address the fiscal challenges facing New York -- has been a success because we have worked together to achieve significant savings in this year’s budget without raising taxes or negatively impacting vital services that New Yorkers rely on.

Today’s actions reduce current-year spending by $426 million and next year’s spending by $649 million, for a combined two-year savings of nearly $1.1 billion.

The Senate Majority has been outspoken in its insistence that this budget will not be balanced through mid-year education cuts that take important resources away from schools, State workforce layoffs, harmful cuts to hospitals that deprive Queens residents of quality health care. We in the Senate have rejected $99 million in cuts to hospitals proposed by the Governor. In addition, we rejected the $29 million cut proposed by the Governor in TAP funding that would make it more difficult for middle-class families to afford college. We have achieved those goals, while once again rejecting a multi-billion dollar tax increase proposed by the Assembly Democrats that would reverse the economic progress we’ve made in the last few months.

The Senate has also passed a constitutional amendment to cap State spending increases and further reduce next year’s deficit. We urge the Governor and Assembly to endorse our constitutional spending cap so we can continue our strong start in overcoming the State’s budgetary challenges. If the amendment were already in effect, taxpayers would have saved $2.8 billion this year alone.

The Governor originally proposed $1.04 billion in budget actions in 2008-2009. Our agreed upon target was was $600 million in cuts. The bill passed today by the Senate includes our 3-way agreement on $427 million in cuts for the current year and $649 million in cuts for 09-10, totally $1.1 billion over two years. According to the Governor’s current estimates, the current fiscal year is balanced.

I commend Governor Paterson for his leadership in focusing New Yorkers on this important issue. He was right to call for spending reductions and has set a fine example by lowering spending in his own Executive agencies by nearly 10 percent.

In the next few weeks, we will continue our dialogue with the Governor, Assembly and others to address the upcoming 2009-10 State Budget. We’ll look for new ways to control State spending while protecting critical services that are important to New Yorkers, so we can continue to put the State on firmer fiscal footing.

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