State budget still has key issues pending

Sure, a state budget was adopted on time. But it counts on some key details that are nowhere near being worked out, including state prison closures, collection of sales taxes on cigarettes sold to non-Indians on reservations, and union givebacks and/or 9,800 state-worker layoffs.

Contracts with the state's largest unions have expired and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo says talks are under way. He seemed last week to try to keep the discussions low profile pending some movement.

"We are hopeful that if those discussions go well, we wouldn't have to lay off anybody," the Democratic governor said. "If those discussions don't go well, worst-case scenario would be 9,800 layoffs. We are not implementing any layoffs for several more weeks . . . We will have conversations before we come to a drop-dead date." -- Yancey Roy