March 26, 2026 · Finance · 557 words · 2 speakers · 7 segments
Thank you. Hi, everybody. It is Thursday, March 26th. This is the Senate Standing Committee on Finance. I'm Chair Liz Krueger. I'm joined by my colleague to my right, Tom o', Meara, the ranker for Finance, also usually to my right, to be honest. And we are joined by quite a few members. We have one bill to vote on today. Clerk all right. 9002A, an act making appropriations for the legal requirements of the state debt service and lease purchase payments and other special contractual obligations. Thank you. And for the record, this is the first budget bill for the up and coming budget, and it is usually the bill we pass first each year because whatever happens with the rest of the bills before or after April 1, it is critical, many of us think, to make sure we do our debt service bill so that it is apparent that come April 1st, New York State will continue to make its payments on the debt that we have already voted to take on, have already in most cases borrowed the money and even spent some of the money by now. And we can't imagine, or maybe I can't imagine the state of New York continuing to make good on its debts. I don't think anybody really wants that to happen, but we'll see. So I'm going to ask, are there any questions or discussion about this bill?
No. If I could just follow up on that, Senator, this is one of ten budget bills. Where are the other nine? And we don't know what's in them.
Finally, you and I both do not know what's in them. Finally, we do not have the other nine, and it doesn't have to be nine, but that is probably the right number. And therefore we are moving this bill because we know that we need to keep paying our debts even though we're not exactly sure what the new budget year will look like in most cases.
I agree with paying our debts for what's currently outstanding, what's currently been indebted. This bill, however, includes quite a bit more than that that has not yet been bonded for. So I think it's imperative that we have at least a finalized capital budget, capital projects budget at the time that we're doing this. That's my concern with it.
No, I respect that. But just for the record, if there is new money that we are assuming we will owe debt on in the coming year, and we have included that estimate in here, if the final budget language for capital doesn't approve that money for spending, we won't be borrowing it and therefore we won't owe anything. So to some degree we are covering the possibility that we have additional debt taken on in the next year. But that doesn't happen unless we actually vote for that debt. In what? In the new final capital budget bill.
Thank you.
Thank you. Other questions or discussion? Thank you. John moves first the bill. Senator hits. Excuse me. Michelle Hinscher second the bill. All those in favor? Any opposed? Any? Without recognizing Holly for all of that rec. With that, this bill moves to the floor and this committee meeting is over. Thank you.