Our wish list for Albany, Andrew Cuomo

It takes two to tango. But it takes three to spin a budget in New York, and the annual dance has begun.

So far, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the State Senate and Assembly have been sashaying to their own tunes. Now they must partner up and agree on a $145 billion annual spending plan by the April 1 deadline.

Big issues abound — paid family leave, minimum wage, education aid, ethics reform, environmental funding and infrastructure. Some will be yoked in unforeseen ways. And looming over Cuomo, Assemb. Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan is dwindling bank settlement money that has added more than $8 billion to the last two state budgets. Caution is in order.

Here is our wish list:

Worker measures

Workers need time off to care for children or aging parents. Paid family leave has wide support, and would be employee-funded under Como’s plan. Absent a national law and with consideration for small businesses to prevent staffing shortages, this should be adopted as a matter of basic fairness. Cuomo has proposed 12 weeks; eight weeks probably will get it done.

A wage that leaves a full-time worker in poverty is not defensible. Cuomo’s proposal for a $15 minimum wage phased in over five years, then indexed to inflation, is the right thing to do.

Education

SUNY 2020, which lets SUNY campuses raise tuition up to $300 a year, expires this year. Renew it. Predictable tuition increases are better than unexpected spikes. But state aid for SUNY has been flat. Tuition funds 70 percent of operations; it was 50-50 nine years ago. The state needs to up its ante.

Endless infighting over control and funding of CUNY continues. Cuomo, who proposes to shift $485 million of CUNY’s costs from the state to the city, is correct that CUNY’s expenses are too high, too many salaries are bloated, and more oversight would be good, but students must not get hurt in the end.

Cuomo pitched a $960 million hike in K-12 aid; it will be more, but by how much and in what form? Cuomo should repay this year the entire remaining $434 million taken from school districts in 2009 to 2011 via the Gap Elimination Adjustment, rather than over two years as he proposes. Long Island’s share is $117 million.

His $100 million proposal to bring social workers, mentors, medical personnel and mental health experts into failing schools and make them community schools is a promising start. But it must be executed well, and more funding is needed to make a real difference.

Infrastructure

Several Cuomo initiatives could help transform Long Island, including $5 million to study a tunnel or bridge to Connecticut or Westchester, $6 million for a federal customs station at Long Island MacArthur Airport, and $1 million to study a deepwater port in Shoreham. We also like separate allocations of $50 million for two promising projects — building a bioelectronics facility at the Nassau Hub and parking and road work at the Ronkonkoma Hub.

Environment

Cuomo proposes a much-needed increase to $300 million for the Environmental Protection Fund for programs such as land conservation, clean water and wetlands protection, and recycling. Funding and staffing for the Department of Environmental Conservation also must be boosted. The resource-deprived agency faces added responsibilities in solid waste regulation and climate change programs.

Cuomo wants to add $100 million to pump up a wastewater and sewer infrastructure fund to $250 million. Statewide need is as much as $56 billion. This will help, but not enough.

Taxes

Small business tax breaks would help offset the cost of a minimum wage hike. Ideas worth considering: raising the threshold above which income is taxed, increasing the income exemption for small businesses and farms, and increasing the corporate tax threshold.

For seniors, increasing the private-pension and retirement income exempt from taxes from $20,000 to $40,000 would on average mean savings of $361 a year. This would help keep retirees from fleeing and taking their income with them.

A surcharge on utility bills called the 18-a assessment was enacted as a temporary measure in 2009, renewed, and then scheduled for phaseout by 2017. It has functioned as a tax with revenues going to the general fund, not to pay for costs incurred by the Public Service Commission, as intended. End it now.

Ethics reform

Cuomo, the Senate and Assembly are all for it. But they have different ideas of what “it” should be. What we want: pension-stripping for public officials convicted of corruption, term limits for elected officials, time limits for legislative leadership roles, a ban on outside income for legislators in return for higher pay, and closing the LLC loophole in campaign finance regulations.

Some good ideas are getting no traction. A tolling-and-congestion pricing plan for New York City and a state environmental bond act must be addressed soon. And we’ll be watching for some bold and clearly defined plans for the $438 million remaining in transformative funding for Long Island announced by Cuomo last year.

Cue the band.