Rank-and-File Lawmakers Mostly Mum During Budget Debate

Since last week’s passage of the 2023-24 state budget, many details of the $229 billion spending plan have been slowly bubbling to the surface because state lawmakers were not able to digest the thousands of pages compiled into 10 bills that make up the document that will govern people’s lives for at least the next year.

Some freshmen lawmakers were so overwhelmed by the budget, they watched and didn’t say a word over the two-day marathon session to pass the bills.

Senator Jessica Scarcella-Spanton (D – West Brighton, North Shore, Staten Island), chief of operations for her predecessor Diane Savino, saw several budget processes but was never on the inside with the lawmaker as a staffer when the budget was discussed in the Democratic conference. That changed this year.

“I advocated for the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge tolls for Staten Island residents would be covered at $5.50. That was a $7 million budget item,” Scarcella-Spanton told The Jewish Link. “We got $250,000 in additional funding for the Jewish Community Center in Coney Island, which is also part of my district.”

There were plenty of items in the budget Scarcella-Spanton was not happy with, but she held her nose when voting for the bills.

“The MTA plan to put speed cameras on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, on the highway, was a little bit dangerous because if you’re doing the speed that you would be driving on the highway and you have to slam on your brakes, I think there is a risk for accidents so we were able to get that proposal completely removed from the budget,” said Scarcella-Spanton.

The freshman lawmaker didn’t think the baby should be thrown out with the bathwater when it came to the governor’s housing plan.

“We do need more housing on Staten Island,” said Scarcella-Spanton. “Local residents should have input about any development that is coming into their neighborhoods. We were able to advocate to maintain local control of development on Staten Island. Which is a great thing.”

The controversial bail reform package that amended the discovery laws did not make it through to the final document, but money to help district attorneys gear up to hire more staff to reduce the backlog of cases was something she supported.

“I wasn’t pleased that discovery reform was taken out,” Scarcella-Spanton noted. “We got $50 million in the budget for the district attorneys so that they can implement the new discovery reforms in a more effective way by hiring staff and things of that nature. That will be divvied up among all five district attorneys so that doing their jobs of prosecuting crimes [is] made easier.”

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