Cuomo: NY has to 'get smart' about cutting deficit

With New York facing a projected $9 billion deficit next year, Gov.-elect Andrew Cuomo said yesterday there's no room for new taxes or otherwise buying the state's way out of fiscal trouble.

Talking in Puerto Rico to top state lawmakers attending a conference there, Cuomo said they will instead have to "get smart" and find other ways, including redesigning programs to ensure needed services.

"We're not going to buy our way out of these problems," Cuomo said. Some of his remarks were e-mailed to reporters in video and audio files.

Using education as an example of problems that persist despite generous funding, he said New York already spends the most in the nation per student but ranks 40th in performance.

He said that high spending, yet low performance proves that "it was never about the money."

In his first speech since election night, Cuomo said the policies laid out in his campaign aren't changing. They include no personal or corporate tax increases, capping state spending and property taxes, eliminating mandates and initially freezing public worker salaries.

Asked by reporters if he wanted to work with the current legislative leaders - Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver of Manhattan and Senate Democratic leader John Sampson of Brooklyn - or had signaled a preference for someone besides Silver, Cuomo said those decisions are up to the legislators and not him, and that he doesn't tend to send signals.

"I tend to say what I think. I tend to mean what I say," Cuomo said.

With a few close Senate races still awaiting absentee ballot counts, it's not yet clear whether Democrats will keep their 32-30 majority, whether Republicans will retake the majority or the chamber will be divided 31-31.

Cuomo said he believes Lt. Gov.-elect Robert Duffy could vote to break a tie in the choice of the Senate's leader.

Senate Republicans disagree, arguing that the lieutenant governor as the Senate's presiding officer has legal authority to vote only on procedural matters.

At the annual conference of Latino lawmakers, members of Congress, lobbyists and others, including Gov. David A. Paterson, Cuomo said his immediate concern is recruiting talent for his administration and that he planned to meet this week with Paterson to discuss the transition.

Paterson's budget office in a report last week projected the $9 billion deficit for the 2011-2012 fiscal year.

"I'm not going to be changing any policy between now and January," Cuomo said. "The government is going to have to go through [a] recalibration."He also thanked Latino leaders from New York for their backing in his victory.