Legislature's budget plans could reinstate $4.4M in aid to CSI

Lawmakers were stymied last year when Pataki vetoed 195 parts of fiscal blueprint, including funds for school

Staten Island Advance - March 16, 2005

ALBANY — Gov. George Pataki will get a second chance to funnel nearly $4.4 million to the College of Staten Island.

State lawmakers tried to deliver the money last summer, but were thwarted when Pataki vetoed 195 parts of the state budget — CSI’s cash included.

Seven months later, budget plans approved in both the Democratic-controlled Assembly and Republican-run Senate could restore the aid.

“We’re delighted that ‘these funds are back in the budget,” CSI’s president, Dr. Marlene Springer, said in a statement to the Advance.

If approved, some $3 million of the money will allow CSI to renovate its “2M” building — a onetime bakery and food-storage facility at the defunct Willowbrook State School — for extra space at the 12,600-student college.

Dr. Springer said the added space is required to accommodate “record enrollment.”
It also will allow CSI to expand science facilities for macromolecular and polymer research, she said.

The rest of CSI’s cash would include $678,000 for new parking, $297,000 to light pedestrian walkways, $223,000 to improve lighting and $198,000 to refurbish study alcoves.

Assemblyman Michael Cusick (D-Mid-Island), whose district includes the 204-acre campus, said the CSI funding was a major reason he voted “yes” on the Assembly’s budget resolution Monday.

Cusick had reservations about the overall Assembly resolution — he stressed his opposition to reinstating the sales tax on shoes and clothes costing less than $110 — but he said the restoration of funds for health care and the holding action on tuition at SUNY and CUNY this fall got his vote.

Assemblymen John Lavelle (D-North Shore) and Vincent Ignizio (R-South Shore) also approved the resolution, while Matthew Mirones (R-East Shore/Brooklyn) voted against it.

In the Republican-controlled Senate, state Sens. John Marchi (R-Staten Island) and Diane Savino (D-North Shore/Brooklyn) voted on a series of budget bills Monday and yesterday. Marchi voted “yes” to all of them, while Ms. Savino voted against three of the bills.

Marchi’s vote on an education budget bill - which includes the cash for CSI — was not immediately available, though it passed. Ms. Savino voted against the bill. She said she supports the money for CSI, but opposes, among other facets of the Senate’s proposal, its funding formula for city schools.

Should the Legislature’s plans stand, Pataki will become the final hurdle for the CSI money — again.

Pataki vetoed it last summer, saying state lawmakers wanted to spend too much and tax too much. Yesterday, when the Republican governor was asked about potential vetoes of college aid this year, he did not rule them out.

Pataki told reporters he’s “very concerned” about the Legislature’s newest spending
Plans.

Top state lawmakers had “conceptual” agreement on a state budget that would spend $1.55 billion more than Pataki proposed.

“Just understand that where the numbers are right now, that is not something that I can accept,” Pataki said in a half-hour meeting yesterday evening.

The agreements on Senate-Assembly “spending targets” for each major area of the spending plan were presented to Pataki last week.

On Monday, Pataki said the Legislature “unquestionably” wants to spend too much. He was even more blunt yesterday, saying the lawmakers’’ spending target “is significantly over what the state can sustain.”

— Associated Press material was used in this report.
 

By Robert Gavin
Advance Albany Bureau
Reprinted here with permission from the