Schools, med center may get budget boost

ALBANY -- The Long Island Senate delegation moved Tuesday to restore aid to Nassau and Suffolk county schools and Stony Brook Medical Center.

Tucked into a budget passed by the Senate are proposals that would chip away at cuts proposed earlier this year by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. Although the restorations are comparatively small, senators said their plan cures an inequitable hit on Long Island schools -- which was a chief criticism of the governor's plan.

The State Assembly also completed its budget bills Tuesday, setting the stage for negotiations with Cuomo as both houses attempt to adopt a spending plan by the April 1 start of the fiscal year.

Cuomo has proposed cutting school aid for 2011-12 to $19.4 billion, a $1.5-billion reduction. The Senate proposal would restore about $280 million -- with 25 percent directed to Long Island schools. As a result, Island schools' portion of school aid would be 13 percent -- matching traditional "shares" of aid distributed by the governor and legislature.

"What we looked at was regional balance. The governor didn't look at regional balance," said Sen. John Flanagan (R-East Northport), chairman of the Senate Education Committee. "This is a fair distribution of funds. We've taken a very difficult, bad situation and made it better."

The State Assembly also voted to restore a small portion of school aid, $200 million. Assembly officials could not immediately provide a breakdown of aid to Island schools. Neither house provided a district-by-district rundown.

Both houses also rejected Cuomo's plan to shift funding for so-called 4201 schools -- for the deaf, blind and severely disabled -- from the state to local school districts.

And they included restorations for Stony Brook and the two other State University of New York hospitals. While the governor proposed cutting about $154 million from the hospitals, the Senate called for restoring about $115 million and the Assembly $64 million, according to Stony Brook spokeswoman Monica Mahaffey.

By and large, the overall Senate and Assembly plans don't differ greatly from the governor's. The Democrat-led Assembly inserted two changes that could be flash points: it rejects Cuomo's call for a cap on medical malpractice awards and it would renew an income-tax surcharge on high-earning New Yorkers. The Republican-controlled Senate failed to include Cuomo's call to give raises to certain home-care workers.

Still, a collegial tone clearly permeates the Capitol with many Republican and Democratic legislators predicting that all sides could come to a budget agreement in rapid order.

"On most stuff, all three sides are in agreement," said Assemb. Robert Sweeney (D-Lindenhurst). "I don't see anything holding it up to the extent that we can't get a budget by April 1."