Gov. Kathy Hochul agreed to boost her proposed budget by $4 billion in exchange for $600 million to help build a new Buffalo Bills stadium and support for her plan to roll back the state’s controversial bail reform law, sources told The Post on Friday.
Hochul was able to make the deals — leading to Thursday’s overdue agreement on a record $200 billion spending plan for fiscal 2023 — because the state is flush with cash from federal COVID-19 funds, sources said.
“The tradeoff is: We get $4 billion to add to Hochul’s $216 billion,” an Assembly Democrat from New York City said.
The November elections, in which Hochul, a Democrat, is seeking a full term after succeeding scandal-scarred predecessor Andrew Cuomo, also played a factor in her wheeling and dealing, sources said.
One Assembly Democrat even invoked the infamous “Buffalo Billion” corruption scandal that sent former top Cuomo aide Joe Percoco to federal prison.
“She knew that the Buffalo half-billion was going to be something that would get people’s attention,” the lawmaker said.
“She knew this would be looked at as her own capital project.”
Hochul’s demand that taxpayers help fund a $1.4 billion stadium for her hometown team didn’t emerge until early last week, just days before the Thursday deadline to adopt the new state budget.
Legislators are in the process of voting on the 10 budget bills, a task that could continue into Saturday morning.
Assemblywoman Latrice Walker (D-Brooklyn), who went on a hunger strike to oppose Hochul’s bail proposals, bitterly blamed “sentiment and public perception” for the governor’s ability to win over the Legislature amid surges in crime across the state.
“This policy was tried in a court of public opinion, as opposed to facts,” Walker claimed.
Both Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-The Bronx) and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) opposed the bail reform rollbacks and pointedly refused to appear with Hochul to announce the budget deal.
Under the 2019 bail reform law, judges were left powerless to set bail for defendants charged with most misdemeanors and many felonies.
Hochul’s plan would allow defendants to be held on bail for alleged repeat offenses, hate crimes and weapons-related charges, or if their criminal records make them likely to cause “harm” if put back on the streets.
But Mayor Eric Adams and the NYPD’s unions said Friday that those moves don’t go far enough, with Hizzoner saying that “clearly, there’s more to be done.”
Veteran Democratic consultant Hank Sheinkopf said that “the biggest thing she got was the Buffalo Bills stadium” but cautioned that it might not end up helping her politically.
“The bail reform changes were minor and the problem for the fall is people are not going to forget this: The size of the budget, that Buffalo got more than downstate and that there was no resolution of the crime problem,” he said.
“That’s what they will remember.”
Hochul’s office declined to respond directly to the criticisms and instead referred The Post to comments made by the Division of Budget Director Robert Mujica Thursday, where he explained the additional billions are coming from higher than expected revenues.
