This late show isn’t funny: Albany blows the budget deadline despite getting a big pay raise

It’s April Fool’s Day and the practical joke is on 20 million New Yorkers, for unless there was a miracle last night after we went to press, the New York State government’s 2024 fiscal year has arrived without an approved budget.

At fault are the 213 members of the Legislature and Gov. Hochul, although the real culprits are the ruling Democrats, 102 in the Assembly and 42 senators, supermajorities both, under Speaker Carl Heastie and Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, along with Hochul.

Last year, newcomer Hochul debuted with a late budget, exacerbated by her rookie mistake of jamming in a last minute surprise sweetheart deal for more than billion dollars in public money for her beloved hometown Buffalo Bills to get a new outdoor stadium on the outskirts of town.

Her excuse this year is, well we don’t know exactly, but she did push for worthy changes in the bail laws, expanding housing construction and allowing more charter schools, all reforms demanded by the voting and taxpaying public, but anathema to the legislators in thrall to leftwing ideologues, suburban parochialism and the teachers union. Hochul is also trying to find a stable new revenue source for the MTA, which has lost a third or more of its passengers.

Mind you, this failure by the Legislature to come an agreement is after Hochul said that she wanted to be nice to them and agreed in December to approve a gigantic pay raise of $32,000, bringing this benighted rank and file to salaries of $142,000 — far, far higher than any other state. And thanks to their leadership lulus of $41,500 each, Heastie and Stewart-Cousins make $183,500, almost 10 grand more than members of Congress at $174,000.

Now that the deadline has passed and we are in extra innings, the power has shifted. In order to keep the government operating Hochul must send extender bills. Under the state Constitution, the Legislature cannot alter a word, so she can force her hand. Do it, Guv. No more Ms. Nice Gal.