After much partisan debate, State Senate OKs budget

By Tom Precious

This year’s state budget received final approval Friday in the State Senate but only after overcoming a week of partisan wrangling, an ailing senator whose hospital visits shut down the Senate and even a lost suit jacket that kept a senator off the chamber’s floor.

The $131.8 billion spending plan, including more than $8 billion in new revenue-raising ideas imposed on residents and businesses, came three days late amid a nasty debate in the Senate that was as much about the spending plan as next year’s elections.

Senate Minority Leader Dean G. Skelos, a Rockville Centre Republican, called the fiscal process a “sham” resulting in a bloated budget that will hurt New Yorkers in the recession.

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