Cardinal Timothy Dolan has the patience of a saint — but not when he sees New York politicians leaving his parochial school students twisting in the wind.
New York’s archbishop said Thursday he has waited long enough for Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the state Legislature to approve a state tax credit that would benefit public and parochial school students alike.
“It’s time for a vote” in Albany, he said.
“Please, it’s time for some action. This has gone on for too long,” Dolan told The Post Thursday.
“I try to be a man of hope, I try to be a man of patience, I try to lose neither,” he said. “My job is to encourage those values in other people.”
The budget debate in Albany this year has been a trying one.
Dolan and a coalition of religious, immigration and labor leaders have spent months lobbying for the Education Income Tax Credit, which would provide up to a 75 percent tax credit for an individual’s contribution toward a private or public school scholarship fund.
Dolan said Cuomo told him the best way to pass the credit was to include it in the state budget.
But Cuomo, who earmarked $100 million in the budget for the initiative, linked passing the tax credit to the Dream Act bill supporting college tuition for undocumented immigrants.
Talks collapsed this week when Republican senators scuttled the tuition bill and some Democratic Assembly members balked at the school tax credit.
Dolan said he was “discouraged” by the developments and did not understand the politics behind the budget negotiations.
“Gov. Cuomo, Speaker [Carl] Heastie, and Senator [Dean] Skelos told me from the beginning, the best, most expeditious way to pass this is through the budget,” he said. “Now when I hear from the same people that it is not going to happen, yeah, there’s some discouragement.”
He refused to blame Cuomo, instead faulting other Assembly Democrats backed by teachers unions for a “lack of sensitivity” toward parochial school students.
“I like to think that, as citizens of this state, we have to help all of our kids and all of our schools benefit when all of our kids have a chance at the best education possible,” Dolan said.
Cuomo announced Tuesday he would take both measures out of the budget and separate them. Thursday, he called for lawmakers to vote on both bills.
“I fervently support both the Dream Act and the EITC on their own merits because they will open up educational opportunities for New Yorkers who need them the most,” the governor said in a statement to The Post.