Report on

the State Budget Process,

Relative to the Executive’s Legislative Authority
By Boris Santos
(July 2020)

“Article V of the proposed Constitution, requiring the submission by the Governor of a responsible
budget to the Legislature, I believe to be the most fundamental and far reaching of all the reforms
attempted by the proposed Constitution”

- Henry L. Stimson
Saving the State’s Money
 Table of Contents

I. Introduction

II. Executive Budgeting: How we Got Here

III. Defects of Present Budget System in New York State

IV. An Attempt at Tackling the Flaw with Silver v Pataki

V. The Budget Equity Act: Current Proposal to Amend Budget Process

VI. Recommendations

VII. On Co-Equal Budgeting

VIII. Comparing Other States’ Budget Processes

VIIII. Brief Summary of Possible Objections and Answers

X. Conclusion

XI. Appendix

XII. References
I. Introduction

It’s been over a decade and a half since Judge Robert Smith declared, in the landmark Silver v Pataki
case, “We therefore leave for another day the question of what judicially enforceable limits, if any,
beyond the anti-rider clause of article VII, §6 the Constitution imposes on the content of [the Governor’s]
appropriation bills”1. Could the Legislature “delete from the Governor’s appropriation bills some of the
language it considered unconstitutional”? Could the “Legislature [strike] whole items of appropriation
(as it indisputably had a right to do), and then [enact] its own appropriation bills, appropriating identical
amounts of money for similar purposes, but subject to different conditions and restriction”? These were
the constitutional questions in consideration for the Court of Appeals in the case.

Although the Court reaffirmed that the Legislature could not “alter an appropriation bill submitted by the
governor except to strike out or reduce items therein” (in other words, the Legislature violated the ‘no-
alteration’ clause of §4 of Article VII of the NY State Constitution), it left one important question
unanswered. What limits does the Executive have in proposing legislation – whose primary purpose
and effect is not really budgetary – within the budget? Despite the State Constitution containing the
vital “anti-rider” clause (Section 6 of Article 7), which stipulates that the provisions of the Governor’s
appropriations bills must be “specifically” related to “some particular appropriation” in those bills, this
clause has, from our understanding, not been evoked to strike out any policy improprieties through
litigation. Additionally, the Court of Appeals in Silver v Pataki did not give clear guidance as to what
course of action should be taken if and when the Governor does insert such non-budgetary items within
the budget. “We do not find it necessary to answer in this case the question of what is to be done when
a Governor does include such unsuitable [non-budgetary] material”, wrote Judge Smith for the plurality
opinion.

By leaving the Executive’s legislative budgetary authority virtually undefined, or by not affirming any
course of action that can be taken to combat the Executive inserting far-reaching legislation into the
budget, the Court of Appeals left a pandora’s box open that has practically led subsequent enacted
budgets to include a myriad of substantive law or policy change that is not necessarily connected to
any particular item of appropriation, and that at times have not faced any public scrutiny. This is true
even with the budgets passed under the Democratic majority-led Legislature for the 2019-2020
legislative term (which I will address within this report).

Governor Cuomo has previously used his undefined legislative-budgetary authority to strong arm the
Legislature into passing his policy agenda within the budget or risk a late budget, and therefore shutting
down the government and potentially waning the public’s confidence in the state government. As a
Cuomo aide once told The New Yorker back in 2015, “We said to them, [the Legislature] ‘Here’s your
extender, it’s called the budget. If you don’t want to pass it, you will close the whole government—not
just the parks, the whole thing… [The Legislature] understood that we meant business. They passed
the budget, and they did it on time”2. The constitutional flaw left behind by the Court of Appeals decision
under Silver v Pataki has – in practice – given the Governor an unfair, lob-sided legislative-making
advantage within the budget process.

1
Pataki v New York State Assembly (Court of Appeals of New York, 2004)
2
Toobin, Jeffrey. “The Albany Chronicles, how Andrew Cuomo gets his way.” The New Yorker, February 2015
This report was written to highlight constitutional fixes that must be made to rectify the constitutional
shortcomings of Silver v Pataki3 on the Executive’s legislative budget making authority. The report gives
a brief history of how executive budgeting came to be, expands more on the defects of the present
budget system, discusses the failed attempt made to fix the problem, analyzes a current bill proposed
to resolve the issue (the “Budget Equity Act”), and details specific recommendations on how to ideally
resolve the constitutional dilemma.

II. Executive Budgeting: How we Got Here

On April 14, 1914, through the automatic referral of a constitutional convention provision of the
Constitution, New Yorkers voted to hold a seventh Constitutional Convention (the Constitution, then
and now, grants New Yorkers the right to vote on whether to hold a constitutional convention every
twenty years). So, in 1915, after many meetings, the 168 convention delegates proposed thirty-three
changes to the constitution. Those changes were grouped into five questions and presented to voters
on November of 1915. Although all the proposals were ultimately rejected by the electorate, there was
one proposal, along with the reorganization of state government, that would go on to eventually be
ratified into our Constitution. That proposal called for the establishment of an executive budget.

Thirty standing committees centered on specific policy and constitutional areas were created in the
1915 Constitutional Convention, and each was required to report to the delegation on their subject area.
On August 4, 1915, the Committee on State Finances, Revenues, and Expenditures (whom I’ll refer to
as the Finance Committee in this report), chaired by former Secretary of War Henry L Stimson,
submitted a Report of the Committee on State Finances, Revenues and Expenditures, Relative to a
Budget System for the State. In the report, the Finance Committee (member names could be found in
Figure 1 of the Appendix A) laid out the defects contained within the budgeting system that existed
then. Among the flaws cited, a highly important one was that the Legislature was not deemed the proper
body to prepare a budget plan.

According to the Finance Committee, the legislature naturally has no administrative control of agencies
and therefore faces difficulties in assessing the needs and priorities of all agencies which would allow
them to produce a holistic, centralized financial plan that “reconciles conflicts between overlapping or
encroaching bureaus so as to prevent duplication of effort and expense”4. Legislature budgeting
resulted, in the Finance Committee’s eyes, in financial waste and pork because, “Its members, instead
of being responsible solely to the State as a whole, are each responsible to and dependent upon a
single district of the State”5. In fact, it was the belief of the Finance Committee that the legislature

3
It is important to note that the Court of Appeals decision in NY State Bankers Assn v Wetzler opened the door for the
Silver v Pataki decision. Prior to Bankers, the Legislature and Governor adopted the budget by consensually negotiating on
appropriation law (particularly the terms and conditions of funding for a program, not the quantity of an appropriation).
This much could be grasped by then Attorney General Robert Abrams’ response to the NY State Bankers Association’s
grievance that the Legislature had added to an appropriation bill a provision authorizing the Department of Taxation and
Finance to charge banks a fee for the cost of conducting bank audits. Robert argued that, “That the courts' invocation of
article VII, § 4 [the no alteration clause] is an unwarranted judicial interference in the budgetary process because it amounts
to a ‘purely technical judicial roadblock into the consensual budget process’ and because where ‘the Governor and
Legislature are in agreement on the necessity of a change in a budget bill, it makes absolutely no sense to apply section 4 to
forbid the change simply because it may technically have been added by the Legislature’”. The budgetary norm of the time
was that legislation (both term and conditions of funding and policy) were negotiables between the Legislature and
Executive.
4
Report of Comm. on State Finances, Revenues and Expenditures, Relative to a Budget System for the State, State of
New York in Convention Doc No. 32, (Aug. 4, 1915), 8 
5
Report of Comm. on State Finances, 8
budgeting system that once existed was directly responsible for the rapidly increasing growth of
government expenditure that the State experienced from the years of 1885 to 1914. This was, after all,
the topic area that the Committee first addressed within their report.

The Finance Committee also perceived the then legislature budgeting system as one that, “Reverses
the real relation of the executive to the legislature and surrenders important powers to the executive”6.
As stated by the Committee in their report, “Instead of the Executive coming to the Legislature with a
request for funds, which it is the province of the Legislature to pass upon and either grant or refuse, our
system has gradually resulted in the Legislature presenting to the Executive appropriation bills which
he is expected to reduce”7. Back then, once the Legislature voted on all appropriation items, the
Governor had the constitutional authority to veto or reduce any appropriation (which happened to occur
after legislative sessions8). This represented a great sin in budgeting process design to the Finance
Committee. Having the last say on exactly how much public funds should be spent on particular items
of appropriation (i.e. should the item be reduced?), or on striking out certain lines of appropriations
altogether, was the definition of truly having the power of the purse. Why give that authority to the
Executive when consensus among many political philosophers was that the power of the purse uniquely
belonged to the Legislature?

The Finance Committee viewed budgeting within a democratic-republic system composed of a

Legislature and Executive as one where, “The function of proposing a budget should be separated from
the function of disposing it”9. In order to remedy the defects of the budgeting system that existed, the
Finance Committee proposed giving the former function to the Executive and the latter to the
Legislature. The exact wording of the proposed constitutional amendment made by the Finance
Committee could be found in Figure 2 of Appendix A. The amendment was rejected by voters by an
estimated margin of seventy percent ‘no’ and thirty percent ‘yes’10. That did not mark the end of the
concept of executive budgeting in New York.

In January 1919, Governor Al Smith appointed a Reconstruction Commission to make a report on

retrenchment and reorganization in the state government. On October 10, 1919, the Commission’s
report stated, “It seems obvious that the defects of the financial system of New York state cannot be
overcome except by the adoption of a thoroughgoing executive budget system”11. Among the defects
cited about Legislature Budgeting was the lack of a genuine budget not produced by the process, the
Governor having no definite function in the budgetary process, and the lack of limitations on the
Legislature’s ability to introduce special appropriations bills which were rushed through near the end of
the session making a complete budget plan impossible.

In 1925, after many years of fighting to consolidate and reorganize the many bureaus and departments
within State government since he was first elected as Governor in 1919, Governor Al Smith and other
legislative leaders appointed the State Reorganization Commission which resulted in the merger of 187
agencies into eighteen departments. On February 26, 1926, the State Reorganization Commission,
chaired by former Governor Charles Evans Hughes (and colloquially known therefore as the Hughes

6
Report of Comm. on State Finances, 12
7
Report of Comm. on State Finances, 12
8
Report of Comm. on State Finances, 13
9
Report of Comm. on State Finances, 16
10
New York Constitutional Amendment, Amendment 1 (1915) Election Results
https://ballotpedia.org/New_York_Constitutional_Amendment,_Amendment_1_(1915) (accessed June 28, 2020)
11
Report of Reconstruction Commission to Governor Alfred E. Smith on Retrenchment and Reorganization in the State
Government (October 10, 1919), 316
Commission), submitted to the Legislature a report that recommended the Executive Department to be
divided into five divisions.

Among one of those divisions recommended to be created was the Division of Budget, and along with
the creation of that division the Commission recommended, “That the reorganization of the Executive
Departments made necessary by this constitutional amendment should impose upon the Governor of
the State the responsibility and authority for formulating and proposing the State budget”12. The
Commission essentially recommended establishing a process of executive budgeting, which was made
ever the more possible, if not popular, after twenty-two States, and the Federal Government, decided
to adopt such a system.

In order to “secure continuity and permanence”, the Commission recommended to have an executive
budget system be protected by a constitutional amendment. The Commission declared, “That the form
of such constitutional protection should be that proposed by the Constitutional Convention of 1915”,
but with the inclusion of certain amendments13. The Commission’s recommendations led to the
ratification, by public referendum, of Article IV-A (see Figure 3 of Appendix A) in 1927, which formally
established an executive budgeting system. Article IV-A went on to be repackaged with certain
changes, into a single Article VII because of the 1938 Constitutional Convention. That marked the last
of any concrete changes made to any constitutional amendment that defined and helps to guide the
current executive budgeting system.

III. Defects of Present Budget System in New York State

Our current Constitution gives the Governor the authority to include legislation within the budget.
Section 2 of Article 7 states, “The governor shall submit to the legislature a budget containing a
complete plan of expenditures proposed to be made before the close of the ensuing fiscal year and all
moneys and revenues estimated to be available therefor, together with an explanation of the basis of
such estimates and recommendations as to proposed legislation, if any, which the governor may
deem necessary to provide moneys and revenues sufficient to meet such proposed expenditures”.
Section 3 of Article 7 says, “At the time of submitting the budget to the legislature the governor shall
submit a bill or bills containing all the proposed appropriations and reappropriations included in the
budget and the proposed legislation, if any, recommended therein”.

The anti-rider clause of Section 6 of Article 7 contains the only explicit limitation on the Governor’s
ability to insert far-reaching legislation within the budget. It states, “No provision shall be embraced in
any appropriation bill submitted by the governor or in such supplemental appropriation bill unless it
relates specifically to some particular appropriation in the bill, and any such provision shall be limited
in its operation to such appropriation”. But as stated in the Introduction of this report, it has never been
evoked either by the Legislature or a private citizen to litigate against any suspected legislative abuse
by a Governor within the constitutionally sanctioned budgetary process. Neither has the Court of
Appeals ever commented on the proper course of action for a Legislature that is confronted with an
Executive that pushes for extensive nonbudgetary measures within the budget. As Justice Smith wrote
in Silver v Pataki, “When a case comes to us in which it appears that a Governor has attempted to use
appropriation bills for essentially nonbudgetary purposes, we may have to decide whether to enforce
limits on the Governor's power in designing ‘appropriation bills’ or to leave that issue, like the issues of
itemization and transfer, to the political process”. It is also important to note that the Finance Committee
of the 1915 Constitutional Convention, along with the Finance Committees of the 1938 and 1967

12
Report of the State Reorganization Commission (Feb. 26, 1926), 11
13
Report of the State Reorganization, 13
Constitutional Conventions, have also never publicly commented on the possible limitations that do or
can exist on the Governor.

By being reluctant to weigh-in on the constitutional parameters that exist on the Governor as it pertains
to their legislative budgetary powers, the Court has – in practice – allowed for contemporary budgets
to contain a mishmash of various non-budgetary policy. The budgets passed within the 2019-2020
legislative term, under a Democratic-majority Assembly, Senate, and Governor, is telling of this.

In 2019, Albany legislators passed a budget that among other changes made reforms to bail, discovery,
and speedy trial, banned single-use plastic bags, gave the Governor the authority to remove an
appointee to the Public Authorities Control Board, enacted congestion pricing, and created a
commission on public campaign financing. Regardless if you politically agreed or disagreed with each
of these changes, one thing was certain about the measures outlined. None of these changes were
tied to some “particular appropriation within the bill”, and therefore, if the Legislature decided to enact
the appropriation items within the budget but not the provisions mentioned, then the result could have
led to new litigation on the basis that those policies violated the anti-rider clause of Section 6 of Article
7 of the Constitution. This identical point was made by the Empire Center’s E.J. McMahon in the report
Unbalanced by Design, New York’s Strong Executive Budget System.

In his report, E.J. McMahon discuss how Governor Andrew Cuomo used the tactic of adding clauses
linking appropriations to the State Board of Elections, the Division of Housing and Community Renewal
(HCR), and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to the enactment of certain non-
appropriation Article VII bills within the 2019-20 Executive Budget. Although the Governor eventually
withdrew from utilizing this tactic, “What if, in a future Executive Budget submission, Cuomo revives
this tactic and then insists on enacting such language in a final appropriations bill? The Legislature
could respond by striking out the constitutionally questionable appropriations and force the governor to
negotiate. Or, it could enact the appropriations but not the Article VII language bill provisions to which
they refer. Either approach is likely to lead to fresh litigation”14.

One criticism that the Finance Committee of the 1915 Constitutional Convention highlighted regarding
the way budgeting was carried out by the Legislature, was that budgets were frequently passed late
and with little to no time allowed for the public to scrutinize or for there to be any public discussion about
the matter. The Finance Committee’s 1915 report tells us:

Instead of there being an entire financial program laid before the Legislature by a
responsible executive early in the session with which every citizen in the State can
familiarize himself, comparing its items with the corresponding expenditures of preceding
years, and as to which, therefore, he can put himself in a position to understand the issues
and debates, no citizen now in the ordinary course learns anything of any program until
the Ways and Means Committee reports the appropriation bill so late in the session that
there is no opportunity for effective suggestion or criticism. The bill has then received the
approval of the various elements and leaders in committee and the subsequent
discussions mean little. This evil has been accentuated by the misuse of the emergency
message, under which, during the past twenty-one years, every appropriation bill except
one has been hurried through in the final hours of the session without the necessity even
of being printed and lying on the desks of members for three days.

14
McMahon, E.J., Unbalanced by Design, New York State’s Strong Executive Budget System (January 21, 2020), Pushing
the Envelope
Ironically, contemporary budgets have also reflected this feat, especially as it pertains to non-
appropriation budgetary language. The reform made to the Public Authority Control Board, the creation
of a commission on public campaign financing, and the increase of the Governor’s salary were all
aspects of the Fiscal Year 2020 Budget that were not included either in the Governor’s initial Executive
Budget or his supplemental 30-day Budget amendments. However, by having such ambiguous and
practically an outsized legislative ability within the budget (following Silver v Pataki), along with the
power to issue a message of necessity to the Legislature15, Governor’s like Cuomo can pass legislation
late in the budget process and without there being any publicity on those lately-inserted aspects of the
budget.

IV. An Attempt at Tackling Silver v Pataki Flaw

On November 8, 2005, New Yorkers voted on a proposed constitutional amendment to change the
budget process. After being fed up with the then historical trend of late budgets as well as the perceived
oversized legislative power granted to the Executive following Silver v Pataki, Albany legislators passed
S1/A2 in two consecutive legislative terms which subsequently brought it to a public referendum. Voters
resoundingly rejected the measure. Why? Many believed that the amendment voted on would have
created a messier budget process that would have increased the power of the Legislature in a
“roundabout way” within the budget process. The proposal did not directly tackle the actual issue that
resulted from Silver v Pataki. This was a point that Frank Mauro, former Executive Director of the Fiscal
Policy Institute, emphasized in his piece Understanding and Evaluating the New York State
Legislature’s Proposed Budget Process Constitutional Amendments.

The S1/A2 failed amendment would have automatically imposed a contingency budget whenever the
Legislature failed to act on the Governor’s budget bills before the start of a new fiscal year. The
amendment would have also given the Legislature unrestricted authority to amend the contingency
budget in a single multipurpose bill. These provisions presented a threat to executive budgeting as the
Legislature would have the ability to, “deliberately wait until the clock strikes midnight on the first day
of the fiscal year, [which would allow the] Senate and Assembly leaders [to] put themselves in a position
to amend the contingency budget immediately with appropriations of their own design. For all intents
and purposes, the Governor would then be on the outside of the budget process looking in”16. By no
longer having the role of only reducing or striking out appropriations, but also of possibly substituting
any proposed Executive Budget with their own, executive budgeting could potentially cease to exist
under the framework proposed that was ultimately voted down by voters.

Following the defeat of Proposition One (what the S1/A2 bills gave way to), the State Legislature passed
another bill to amend the budget process in the Spring of 2005 (A4630/S3195). The bill would have
specifically constrained the Governor’s legislative budgeting power by mandating that their
appropriation bills “shall be consistent with and constrained by the provisions of existing state law at
the time of submission”. In addition, such appropriation bills would not be able to “enact conditions of a
program to be funded thereby”. This bill never passed the second consecutive legislative term that it
needed to in order to trigger the constitutional mandate for the public to vote on it. By then, New York
had elected Eliot Spitzer as Governor, who vowed reform to the budget process but never to the scale

15
Section 14 of Article 3 of the Constitution states, “No bill shall be passed or become a law unless it shall have been
printed and upon the desks of the members, in its final form, at least three calendar legislative days prior to its final
passage, unless the governor, or the acting governor, shall have certified, under his or her hand and the seal of the
state, the facts which in his or her opinion necessitate an immediate vote thereon, in which case it must nevertheless
be upon the desks of the members in final form, not necessarily printed, before its final passage…”
16
McMahon, E.J., Breaking the Budget in New York State (October 19, 2005), The Legislature’s poison pill
of codifying via the constitution a proposal like A4630/S3195. The Democratic-majority Assembly, led
by Speaker Sheldon Silver, departed from the then Republican-majority Senate in seeking to pass the
proposal for a second consecutive legislative term17. And so, the proposal died, but the spirit for reform
within the budget process continues today.

V. The Budget Equity Act: Current Proposal to Amend Budget Process

One proposal to amend the budget process that has recently gained traction18 is the Budget Equity Act
(A9100/S8198). First introduced by Assembly Member Dick Gottfried on January 17, 2020,
A9100/S8198 was written to “grant the Legislature to have an equal role with the Governor in the budget
process”. Key provisions of this proposal include:
• The Legislature will now be able to alter an appropriation bill, including by adding items of
appropriation or modifying or substituting items of appropriations
• The Legislature may add, delete, modify or substitute any new legislation, amendment to
legislation or limitation on the effect of any legislation
• Additions, modifications, or substitutions of the Governor’s bills by the Legislature will be subject
to the Governor’s veto authority except for any modification that results in the deletion of new
legislation (modifications and substitutions must be stated separately and distinctly from the
original items of the Governor’s budget bill)
• The Legislature will now be able to consider any other bill making an appropriation regardless of
whether they have acted on the appropriation bills submitted by the Governor

By allowing the Legislature to delete any new legislation proposed by the Governor, and not making it
subject to their vote, this provision of the Biaggi-Gottfried proposal specifically sets a check on the
Executive’s legislative budgeting power. Any non-appropriation bill that the Legislature does not
consent to as collective representatives of New Yorkers can simply be struck out19. The Budget Equity
Act also proposes to explicitly give the Legislature the authority to add new items of appropriations
(along with being able to make modifications to “any new legislation”) and make them subject to the
Governor’s veto. Currently, the Constitution allows the Legislature to make additions to appropriations
but not until they first dispose of the Executive budget (a provision of the Constitution which the Budget
Equity Act eliminates), such additions will then be subject to the Governor’s regular veto, which can
then be overruled with a two-thirds majority vote from the Legislature.

The Finance Committee of 1915 believed it necessary to restrict additions to the proposed Executive
Budget until after it is passed, in order to avoid making the Executive Budget, “liable to destruction on
the floor of the houses”20. After the passage of the general appropriation bill, Albany spectators too

17
Cooper, Michael, “Budget Reform Pact Augurs a More Transparent Albany”, New York Times, January 17, 2007
18
Senator Biaggi and Assembly Member Gottfried wrote an op-ed about Returning Power to the People by Rebalancing
the State Budget Process. They also held a presser on the Budget Equity Act on July 15, 2020 and July 27, 2020 alongside
activist organizations such as Empire State Indivisible, Citizen Action, True Blue NY, and may others. Those same
organizations penned a letter to Assembly Speaker Heastie and Majority Leader Stewart-Cousins, urging them on the need
to pass the Budget Equity Act before July of 2020. Newly elected candidates to both State Assembly and Senate have
been vocal about their support for the Budget Equity Act, including by publishing their very own op-ed on the subject
matter.
19
The Biaggi-Gottfried proposal interestingly removes the Constitutional phraseology of “striking out” and rather uses the
term “deletion”. For the sake of remaining consistent, I recommend using the terms that first originated with the
Constitution when drafting amendments.
20
Report of Comm. on State Finances, Revenues and Expenditures, Relative to a Budget System for the State, State of
New York in Convention Doc No. 32, (Aug. 4, 1915), 11
often witnessed, “The common practice to rush through a large number of petty appropriation bills,
amounting to a considerable sum in the aggregate, with little scrutiny and usually with little debate”21.

That once common practice of passing a rushed large number of “petty appropriation bills” could
possibly arise under the Biaggi-Gottfried proposal unless there’s a mechanism allowed for the
Legislature to not be able to pass an indeterminable amount of “additions, modifications, and
substitutions” to the Governor’s bills when acting on it. Under the Biaggi-Gottfried proposal, the
Executive Budget would however “be protected against its being wholly superseded by a new legislative
budget”, because of the Governor’s retained veto-right over the Legislature’s newly provided and
proposed authority to be able to essentially make alterations to the Executive Budget. I think it best to
tinker with the current Constitutional construct of restrictions against additions to the Executive Budget
only if we can essentially allow such additions to be made by the Legislature in a way that avoids
budgetary chaos as has historically occurred not only through Legislature budgeting but also for twenty
years since 1985 (during this time, late budgets and the practice of staving off a state government
shutdown through the enactment of budget extenders were the norm).

Currently, leaders of the Legislature have no constitutional recourse that they can take if they do not
agree with the Executive when the “Three Men in the Room22” scenario occurs. There is a lack of
transparency to the public as to what occurs in that negotiation room. The public cannot pretend to
claim to know whom exactly was fighting for their causes in that room, and who was holding true to
their public commitments. By eliminating the restriction on the Legislature to be able to consider
appropriation bills only until after they have acted on the Governor’s Budget, we could possibly see
budget talks or maneuvers occur in public and therefore possibly achieve more transparency within the
budget process. A legislative leader would be able to confer with their colleagues about the possibility
of putting for a vote some additional item of appropriation or legislation that one or two of the three men
in the room disagreed with, in order to show how committed to particular causes they might be to the
public. However, whatever discussions occur in the Assembly or Senate majority conferences still will
not be privy to the public, and if a conference does not pursue such a budgetary action under this
possible scenario within the Biaggi-Gottfried proposal, then the public will most likely never know
exactly how the conference arrived at such decision.

Other measures could be proposed and passed to achieve more transparency within the budget
process, if the point is that we are to remove the constitutional restriction on the Legislature from
proposing additions to the Executive’s Budget specifically for further transparency’s sake. We could for
example mandate that the Governor, as a testifier, attend a public hearing on the Executive Budget.
The role of one-house budget resolutions23 also gives us some insight about the areas of disagreement
among the “Three Men in the Room” (albeit not to the degree we might welcome, we technically could
still get some insight). Removing the restriction being discussed on the Legislature could potentially
lead to a messier budget process. The Legislature and Executive could hypothetically end up in an
endless stalemate (again, not like Albany is not acquainted with these impasses) of the Assembly
and/or Senate passing new legislation or appropriations that could be considered alterations and would
be subject to the Executive's subsequent veto. And so, when it comes to removing this specific

21
Report of Reconstruction Commission to Governor Alfred E. Smith on Retrenchment and Reorganization in the State
Government (October 10, 1919), 10
22
“Three Men in a Room” is meant to describe the process by which the Legislature (The Assembly Speaker and Senate
Majority Leader) and the Executive reach a compromise during the budget. The NYS Senate is currently led by an
African American woman in Andrea Stewart-Cousins, therefore technically changing the figure of speech.
23
Currently, the Assembly and Senate both pass one-house budget resolutions that outline their fiscal and appropriations
priorities for the State Budget.
restriction I err on the side of caution. If we are to be given only the option of more budgetary
transparency (that again can be achieved by other means) or a potential messier budget process that
can arise from the removal of the restriction on the Legislature to be able to include additions to the
budget, I chose avoiding the latter. Yet, I believe there to be a way for Albany to be able to give us
greater budgetary transparency, the opportunity to avoid messy or constantly late budgets, and provide
for a more collaborative process among the Legislature and Executive.

VI. Recommendations

Following Silver v Pataki and given the heavy-handed legislating that occurs (especially last minute)
within the budgeting process, it is absolutely incumbent on Albany to set a check or limitations on the
Executive as it pertains to their legislative powers within the budget. As of July 2020, seventy-one
Assembly Members, twenty of which are Republican, have signed onto Senator Biaggi and Assembly
Member Gottfried’s Budget Equity Act, showing that the desire for changes to the Executive’s legislative
budgetary powers is non-partisan. The Court of Appeals missed the opportunity it had to comment on
what possible limitations exist on the Executive to legislate through the budget. Additionally, the
founders of executive budgeting, or the Finance Committee of 1915, did not foresee this specific
Executive abuse arising from the budget process as the absence of pubic commentary, by the
Committee, on this matter is duly noted24. Yet, where there is a void in addressing and resolving abuses
that stem from our budget process, it is our duty to resolve such abuses and ground the proposed
solution in sound, constitutional reasoning.

Any proposal to reform the Constitution to check or limit the Executive’s legislating power within the
budget must:

• Allow the Legislature to strike out both fiscal and non-fiscal legislation proposed by the
Governor. Non-fiscal legislation being defined as legislation that “is not directly necessary to
provide moneys and revenues sufficient to meet proposed expenditures”25. Giving this authority to
the Legislature will solve most of the headaches posed by the problem of the executive being able
to not just only propose any form of legislation within the budget but also be able to actually pass
them even if the majority of the Legislature disagrees with such legislation. The power to legislate
inherently belongs to the Legislature and it is therefore more than reasonable to allow the
Legislature to strike out legislation posed by the Governor in order to provide an additional check
and balance within the budget process to protect this fundamental responsibility. We should never
accept a budget process that would allow for the Governor to usurp this legislative authority; for as
Section 1 of Article 3 of our Constitution reads, “The legislative power of this state shall be vested
in the Senate and Assembly).

• Allow the Legislature to make further alterations to the budget beyond just striking out
legislation or items of appropriation. The Legislature should be able to add items of appropriation

24
In fact, pages 1585-1586 of Record No. 69 encompasses the only written text that cites potential executive abuse within
the proposed executive budgeting system. Nothing on the Executive’s legislating powers was mentioned.
25
Oddly enough, our State Constitution does not define the different forms of legislation that the Governor can propose
and can be considered within the Executive Budget. Courts, including the Appeals Court that made the Silver v Pataki
decision, have commented on (within Court decisions) the different forms of legislation (i.e. legislation that sets terms and
conditions to items being funded). Regardless of whether you believe it ideal for the Governor to be able to propose all
forms of legislation or not, I think it essential to define and differentiate legislation as being non-fiscal and fiscal
especially given that the ability to tax and increase or decrease revenue is inherently within the power of the Legislature.
 and legislation26 (both fiscal and non-fiscal) so long as they are subject to the Governor’s line item
veto. If the Governor can generally veto legislation put forth by the Legislature during the regular
session, then it follows that they should have that ability during the budget process as well.
Currently, the Governor can line item veto any addition that is stated separately and distinctly from
their appropriation bills. By allowing the Governor to retain this power, he or she will be able to shoot
down any alteration or legislation submitted by the Legislature that they believe to go too far within
the budget; an appropriate check and balance clause to retain as the Legislature would be able to
alter their original budget. Just as currently stands, the Legislature would and should be able to
override this veto with a two-third majority approval.

• Legislature additions or alterations to the Executive Budget should also explicitly allow the
Legislature to make substitutions to any new legislation that the Governor proposes. This
should be so in order to deal with the peculiar ghosts of Silver v Pataki. In the plurality opinion,
Judge Robert Smith wrote, “[The Legislature] may add items of appropriation, provided such
additions are stated separately and distinctly from the original items of the bill and refer each to a
single object or purpose. The items thus proposed by the Legislature are to be additions, not merely
substitutions. These words have been carefully chosen”. If the Legislature believe it necessary to
substitute specific language from the Executive Budget in order to carry out, in their eyes, the will
of the public, then substitutions as a form of an addition or alteration to an appropriation bill should
be allowed. The Legislature’s newly proposed ability to make substitutions as a form of alteration to
the Executive’s Budget will also, and should be, subject to the Governor’s veto.

• The Legislature should only consider one appropriation bill with any or all of the alterations
that it can make to all of the Governor’s appropriation bills when it finally acts on them. The
Budget Equity Act, as discussed in Section 5 of this Report, proposes removing the current
restriction on the Legislature to be able to consider additional appropriation bills before acting on
the Executive’s appropriation bills. In order to be able to allow for the Legislature to make alterations
that in no shape or form can elongate, prolong, or generally make the budget process more hectic,
I propose allowing them to only act on one appropriation bill that would conceivably include any and
all alterations to all of the Governor’s appropriation bills. By doing so we would bar the Legislature
from passing an undeterminable quantity of appropriation bills, a predicament that frequently
occurred when we had Legislature budgeting. Ideally, we should take heed from the message, “That
those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

VII. On Co-Equal Budgeting

There was one vital question that I gave some attention to when forming the recommendations in this
report. That question was, “Can a process of Co-Equal budgeting, one where the Legislature and
Executive can play an equal role in the budget process, exist”? Some might believe that such a feat is
not possible. Under a representative democracy with an Executive and Legislature, you can only have
Legislature Budgeting or Executive Budgeting, they would argue. Only one branch can be given the
function of creating a budget and the other of disposing it. Only one can initiate the budget and the

26
The originators of the state budget process were not clear about the kinds of additions they’d ideally like the Legislature
to be allowed to make. Can the Legislature make additions in the form of appropriation items as well as legislative ones?
Or are additions restricted to only the former? Although the State Constitution specifies that, “The legislature may add
thereto items of appropriation” to the Executive Budget their exists little to no commentary on why additions in the form
of legislation were not allowed.
other have finalizing authority such as reducing, striking out, or vetoing of certain items within the
budget. For me, a co-equal budgeting process means one where we allow for budget negotiations to
take place without one branch having some form of bargaining leverage over another. I believe the
recommendations proposed in this report will allow for a better budget process that erodes the present-
day unbalanced playing field between the Executive and Legislature and preserves a budgeting system
that can allow for an on-time, co-negotiated budget. Altogether, the recommendations proposed
essentially provide more checks and balances within the budget process; in doing so, I believe this
would foster a more transparent, collaborative, and thoroughly negotiated budget between the
Executive and Legislature

VIII. Comparing Other States’ Budget Processes

In the hopes of gaining further insight, the laws that codify the budget processes of twelve other states
(that includes both Constitutions and general laws) were analyzed in order to compare and contrast our
process with the process of how budgets get hashed out among the Executive and Legislature in those
states. The twelve states analyzed have budgets with revenues that are greater than the rest of the
states27 in the US for fiscal year 2021, and they are (in order from greatest intake of revenue to least):
California, Washington, Texas, Florida, Oregon, Ohio, Virginia, Michigan, New Jersey, Georgia,
Arizona, and Massachusetts. Of these states, only two (Arizona and Texas) do not have an executive
budgeting process; they rely on Legislature budgeting. You can access a chart that shows a
consolidated summary of the comparative analysis on the states’ budget process in Appendix C at the
end of this report.

One of the more interesting findings made is that many of these states do not have language cemented
into their Constitution that explicitly constrains the Legislature from acting on the Governor’s Budget a
certain way. In fact, the majority don’t even set constraints via state law as well. Whereas our current
Constitution constrains the Legislature from altering the Executive Budget, except to “strike out or
reduce items therein”, nine of the twelve states evaluated do not have any form of constraints to this
liking. However, California, Michigan, and Massachusetts have codified restrictions that disenable their
Legislature’s from considering any other appropriation bill before acting on the Executive Budget;
provisions that essentially replicate Section 5 of Article 7 of our current Constitution.

Section 12(c)(4) of Article 4 of the California Constitution says, “Until the budget bill has been enacted,
the Legislature shall not send to the Governor for consideration any bill appropriating funds for
expenditure during the fiscal year for which the budget bill is to be enacted”. Section 31 of Article 4 of
the Michigan Constitution stipulates, “The general appropriation bills for the succeeding fiscal period
covering items set forth in the budget shall be passed or rejected in either house of the legislature
before that house passes any appropriation bill for items not in the budget”. Section 3 of Article LXIII
of the Massachusetts Constitution says, “The general court [i.e. the Legislature] may provide for its
salaries, mileage, and expenses and for necessary expenditures in anticipation of appropriations, but
before final action on the general appropriation bill it shall not enact any other appropriation bill except
on recommendation of the governor”.

Interestingly, regardless of whether the laws of the twelve state’s analyzed contain a restrictive
provision as the one cited above, the absence or presence of such a provision does not conclusively
give way to making budget processes more or less volatile. That is, whether or not a state has cemented
in their laws a provision that restricts the Legislature on acting on the Governor’s proposed
appropriation bills before acting on any other appropriation bill, the budgets passed in the last decade
27
The state of New York has a budget with the second most amount of revenues out of any other state in the country,
for each state has rarely been late or proved to allow for a prolonged impasse to prevent a budget to
be passed and subsequently a state government shutdown28. This might beckon the question, “Then
why recommend a provision or something akin to it that sets ‘restrictions on consideration of other
appropriations’”? Is it at all really necessary? As mentioned in the Recommendations section, it is best
to reshape our budget process to forge more of a co-equally negotiated budget that can successfully
pass on time by taking into account the contextual history of budgeting in New York State prior to the
advent of executive budgeting. The act of amending our Constitution should account for the lessons
we have learned throughout history and also for any unintended consequences that might arise
because of said amendment. Only then can we feel secure in knowing that we would have left future
generations of New Yorkers with a sound Constitutionally enshrined budget process.

VIIII. Brief Summary of Possible Objections and Answers

I fundamentally disagree with anyone that believes that the recommendations prescribed would amount
to a reintroduction of Legislature budgeting. The recommendations would allow for Executive Budgeting
to remain intact; that is, the proposals protect against the Executive’s Budget from “being wholly
superseded by a new legislative budget”. The recommendation to give the Legislature alteration power
of the Executive Budget will, again, be subject to the Governor’s line-item veto which is an authority
that the other twelve states analyzed within this report also allow for. If the executive believes that the
Legislature is getting carried away with certain proposed alterations, and that they might distort their
proposed budget to a significant degree, then he or she can simply veto them. Any line-item veto would
be able to be overridden with a two-third majority (i.e. “super-majority) in the Legislature, a difficult feat
to electorally accomplish; so much so that it has never been historically done. Additionally, anyone that
argues that the recommendations seed too much power to any branch is also incorrect for thinking so.

The recommendations, as previously mentioned – and as equally important as the intent to preserve
executive budgeting – give way to a more cooperative budget process. Here are scenarios that, through
the proposed checks and balances of this report, could possibly play out. They show how the Executive
and Legislature will be compelled to work more closely in a balanced fashion:

(a) If the Governor wants a piece of legislation to be considered, to which the Legislature might be
reluctant to include and could therefore strike out, he or she might want to bargain by allowing for some
of the Legislature’s budgetary demands, to which they can veto otherwise, to be passed within the
budget in exchange for that desired piece of legislation.

(b) Inversely, if the Legislature desires for a piece of legislation or an increase on a particular item of
appropriation to be included within the budget, then threatening to reduce an item of appropriation or
striking it or any legislation that the Governor might want to get passed within the budget will lead them
to negotiate on an even keel level.

(c) Considering that the Legislature must pass a single budget bill with any and all of the alterations
done to the Governor’s appropriation bill, and knowing that they could strike out any suggested
legislation by the Governor, the Governor will no longer be able to submit a last-minute message of
necessity with additional legislative items to their appropriation bills and therefore force the Legislature
to vote ‘aye’ to such bills in order to avoid shutting down the state government.

28
The State of Massachusetts has struggled to pass budgets prior to the July 1st deadline for the last four fiscal years.
X. Conclusion

The principles outlined by Henry Stimson and the Finance Committee of the Constitutional
Convention of 1915, that the Governor should essentially create a budget and that the Legislature
should dispose of it remains intact through the recommendations in this report. Unlike the Budget
Equity Act, the recommendations proposed do not fully remove the constitutional ‘restrictions on
consideration of other appropriations’ without taking into account the issue warned about during the
time of Legislature budgeting; that is, of the Legislature submitting many additional appropriation
items in which some were added in the last minute of when the bill was voted on. As is stated within
the “State Budgeting, Accounting, and Reporting System” Section of the Revised Code of
Washington (RCS 43.88.010), it is the intent of these recommendations that, “The powers conferred
by [them] shall be exercised by the executive in cooperation with the legislature and its standing
committees in its status as a separate and coequal branch of state government”29.

This report and the recommendations given within it have been written with an understanding that any
proposal made to amend our Constitution can affect myriads of future generations. In fact, if we
succeed in this endeavor of reforming our budget process, then it would be close to a century since
our budget process has been constitutionally amended for. Our task today as a people is to build a
more perfect union. It is to make our public institutions and our democratic processes the most ideal.
It has been an honor therefore, to be able to chime in on this particular subject on how to best reform
our state’s budget process.

29
The “State Budgeting, Accounting, and Reporting System” Section of the Revised Code of Washington (RCS
43.88.010) states that, “It is the intent of the legislature that the powers conferred by this chapter, as amended, shall be
exercised by the executive in cooperation with the legislature and its standing, special, and interim committees in its status
as a separate and coequal branch of state government”. The recommendations within this report have been
comprehensively written to ensure that a budgeting process centered on cooperation and the co-equality of the Legislature
and Executive could come to fruition within our Excelsior state.
 Appendix A:
FIGURE 1:
Members of the Committee on the State Finances, Revenues and Expenditures
(1915 Constitutional Convention)

Mr. Stimson, Chairman. Mr. Hinman, Mr. Low, Mr. Pelletreau, Mr. Parsons, Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Lennox,
Mr. Van Ness, Mr. Austin, Mr. Beach, Mr. Bannister, Mr. Dick, Mr. Wagner, Mr. Potter, Mr.
Stanchfield, Mr. Delancey Nicoll, Mr. Slevin

FIGURE 2:
1915 Proposed Constitutional Amendments on Executive Budgeting
(Rejected by Voters)

To amend the Constitution by inserting a new article in relation to the budget, and to amend Section
21 of Article 3 of the Constitution

The Delegates of the People of the State of New York, in Conventions assembled, do propose as
follows:

To amend the Constitution by adding a new article to read as follows:

ARTICLE _____.

Section 1. On or before the 15th day of November, in the year 1916, and in each year
thereafter the head of each department of the State government except the Legislature and judiciary
shall submit to the Governor itemized estimates of appropriations to meet the financial needs of such
department, classified according to relative importance and in such form and with such explanation as
the Governor may require.
The Governor after public hearing thereon at which he may require the attendance of heads of
departments and their subordinates, shall revise such estimates according to his judgment.
Itemized estimates of the financial needs of the Legislature certified by the presiding officer of
each house, and of the judiciary certified by the Comptroller, shall be transmitted to the Governor
before the 15th day of January next succeeding for inclusion in the budget without revision but with
such recommendation as he may think proper.
On or before the first day of February next succeeding, he shall submit to the Legislature a
budget containing a complete plan of proposed expenditures and estimated revenues. It shall contain
all the estimates so revised or certified and shall be accompanied by a bill or bills for all proposed
appropriations and reappropriations clearly itemized; it shall show the estimated revenues for the
ensuing fiscal year and the estimated surplus of revenues at the end of the current fiscal year,
together with the measures of taxation, if any, which the Governor may propose for the increase of
the revenues. It shall be accompanied by a statement if the current assets, liabilities, reserves, and
surplus or deficit of the state; statements of the debts and funds of the state; an estimate of its
financial condition as of the beginning and end of the ensuing fiscal year; and a statement of
revenues and expenditures for the two fiscal years next preceding said year, in form suitable for
comparison. The Governor may, before final action by the Legislature thereon, amend or supplement
the budget.
 A copy of the budget and of any amendments or additions thereto shall be forthwith
transmitted by the Governor to the Comptroller.
The Governor, the heads of such departments and Comptroller shall have the right, and it shall
be their duty, when requested by either House of the Legislature, to appear and be heard in respect
to the budget during the consideration thereof, and to answer inquiries relevant thereto. The
procedure for such appearance and inquiries shall be provided by law. The Legislature may not alter
an appropriation bill submitted by the Governor except to strike out or reduce items therein; but this
provision shall not apply to items for the Legislature or judiciary. Such a bill when passed by both
Houses shall be a law immediately without further action by the Governor, except that appropriations
for the Legislature and judiciary shall be subject to his approval as provided in Section 9 of Article IV.
Neither House shall consider further appropriations until the appropriation bills proposed by the
Governor shall have been finally acted on by both Houses; nor shall such further appropriations be
then made except by separate bills each for a single work or object which bills shall be subject to the
Governor’s approval as provided in Section nine of Article four. Nothing herein contained shall be
construed to prevent the Governor from recommending that one or more of his proposed bills be
passed in advance of the others to supply the immediate needs of Government.

FIGURE 3:
Article IV-A (Amendments on Executive Budgeting,
Approved by Public Referendum in 1927)

§1. On or before the fifteenth day of October in the year nineteen hundred and twenty-eight and in the
year thereafter the head of each department of the state government, except the legislature and
judiciary, shall submit to the governor itemized estimates of appropriations to meet the financial
needs of such department, including a statement in details of all moneys for which any general or
special appropriation is desired at the ensuing session of the legislature, classified according to
relative importance and in such form and with such explanation as the governor may require. Copies
of such estimates shall be simultaneously furnished to the designated representatives of the
appropriate committees of the legislature for their information.
The governor, after hearings, thereon, at which he may require the attendance of heads of
departments and their subordinates, shall revise such estimates according to his judgement. The
representatives aforesaid of the committees of the legislature shall be invited to attend such hearings,
and under regulations to be provided by law shall be entitled to make inquiry in respect to the
estimates and the revision thereof.
Itemized estimates of the financial needs of the legislature certified by the presiding officer of each
house and of the judiciary certified by the comptroller shall be transmitted to the governor on or
before said fifteenth day of October for inclusion in the budget without revision but with such
recommendation as he may think proper.

§2. On or before the fifteenth day of January next succeeding (except in the case of a newly elected
governor and then on or before the first day of February) he [the governor] shall submit to the
legislature a budget containing a complete plan of proposed expenditures and estimated revenues. It
shall contain all the estimates so revised or certified and clearly itemized, and shall be accompanied
by a bill or bills for all proposed appropriations and reappropriations; it shall show the estimated
revenues for the ensuing fiscal year and the estimated surplus or deficit of revenues at the end of the
current fiscal year together with the measures of taxation, if any, which the governor may propose for
the increase of the revenues. It shall be accompanied by a statement of current assets, liabilities,
reserves and surplus or deficit of the state; statements of the debts and funds of the state; an
estimate of its financial condition as of the beginning and end of the ensuing fiscal year; and a
statement of revenues and expenditures for the two fiscal years next preceding said year in form
suitable for comparison. The governor may before final action by the legislature thereon, and not
more than thirty days after submission thereof, amend or supplement the budget; he may also with
the consent of the legislature, submit such amendment or a supplemental bill at any time before the
adjournment of the legislature. A copy of the budget and of any amendments or additions thereto
shall be forthwith transmitted by the governor to the comptroller.

[Renumbered to §2 and §3 of Article 7 and amended by Constitutional Convention of 1938 and

approved by vote of the people November 8, 1938]

§3. The governor and the heads of departments shall have the right, and it shall be the duty of the
heads of departments when requested by either house of the legislature, to appear and be heard in
respect to the budget during the consideration thereof, and to answer inquiries relevant thereto. The
procedure for such appearance and inquiries shall be provided by law. The legislature may not alter
an appropriation bill submitted by the Governor except to strike out or reduce items therein, but it may
add thereto items of appropriation provided that such additions are stated separately and distinctly
from the original items of the bill and refer each to a single object or purpose; none of the restrictions
of this provision, however, shall apply to appropriations for the legislature or judiciary. Such a bill
when passed by both houses shall be a law immediately without further action by the governor,
except that appropriations for the legislature and judiciary and separate items added to the governor’s
bills by the legislature shall be subject to his approval as provided in section nine of article four.

[Renumbered to §3 and §4 of Article 7 and amended by Constitutional Convention of 1938 and

approved by vote of the people November 8, 1938]

§ 4. Neither house shall consider further appropriations until the appropriation bills proposed by the
governor shall have been finally acted on by both houses; nor shall such further appropriations be
then made except by separate bills each for a single work or object, which bills shall be subject to the
governor’s approval as provided in section nine of article four. Nothing herein contained shall be
construed to prevent the governor from recommending that one or more of his proposed bills be
passed in advance of the others to supply the immediate needs of government or to meet an
emergency.

[Renumbered to §5 and §6 of Article 7 and amended by Constitutional Convention of 1938 and

approved by vote of the people November 8, 1938]

Article 3
§22. No provision or enactment shall be embraced in the annual appropriation or supply bill, unless it
relates specifically to some particular appropriation in the bill; and any such provision or enactment
shall be limited in its operation to such appropriation.
[Renumbered to §6 of Article 7 and amended by Constitutional Convention of 1938 and approved by
vote of the people November 8, 1938]
Appendix B:

FIGURE 1:

FIGURE 2:
 FIGURE 3:

Appendix C:
Analysis of States’ Budget Processes
Constitutional/Legal Budget
State Kind of Budget Restrictions on Legislature Budget Volatility*
California Executive Budgeting X 0/7
New York Executive Budgeting X 1/7
Washington Executive Budgeting/ 0/7
Biannual
Texas Legislature Budgeting/ 0/7
Biannual
Florida Executive Budgeting 0/7
Oregon Executive Budgeting/ 0/7
Biannual
Ohio Executive Budgeting/ 0/7
Biannual
Virginia Executive Budgeting 0/7
Michigan Executive Budgeting X 0/7
New Jersey Executive Budgeting 1/7
Georgia Executive Budgeting 0/7
Arizona Legislature Budgeting 0/7
Massachusetts Executive Budgeting X 4/7
Key:
X = Yes, they have one
* Budget Volatility = This is a measure of how frequently budgets were passed in a late fashion in the
previous seven years. One late budget = 1/7, two late budgets = 2/7, three late budgets = 3/7, etc.
 References

April 1, 1993. State Bankers Association v Wetzler. https://casetext.com/case/state-bankers-assn-v-

wetzler

August 4, 1915. Report of the Committee on State Finances, Revenues and Expenditures, Relative to
a Budget System for the State (Record No. 65)

August 10, 1915. Record No. 69 of 1915 Constitutional Convention

Cooper, Michael. January 17, 2007. “Budget Reform Pact Augurs a More Transparent Albany”, New
York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/17/nyregion/17budget.html

December 16, 2004. Pataki v New York State Assembly. https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ny-court-of-

appeals/1307828.html

McMahon, E.J. October 19, 2005. Breaking the Budget in New York State
https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/breaking-the-budget-in-new-york-state-2/

McMahon, E.J. January 21, 2020. Unbalanced by Design, New York State’s Strong Executive Budget
System. https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/unbalanced-by-design-new-york-states-strong-
executive-budget-system/

Stimson, Henry. 1915. Saving the State’s Money, “The Sound and Far-Reaching Financial Reforms
Contained in The Proposed Constitution

February 26, 1926. Report of the State Reorganization Commission

October 10, 1919. Report of Reconstruction Commission to Governor Alfred E. Smith on

Retrenchment and Reorganization in the State Government

Mauro, Frank. September 1, 2005. Understanding and Evaluating the New York State Legislature’s
proposed Budget Process constitutional amendments.
http://fiscalpolicy.org/FrankMauro~BudgetProcessConstitutionalAmendments.pdf

About the Author

Boris Santos is a former Public Elementary School teacher and former NYC Council and NY State
Senate staffer. He is also a proud member of the Steering Committee of the East New York Community
Land Trust and of the NYC Democratic Socialists of America (NYC-DSA). He is currently part of the
Organizing Committee of the Debt & Finance Working Group of the NYC-DSA.