O’Mara named to Environment/Agriculture/Housing, Economic Development, Mental Hygiene budget committees

Albany, N.Y., January 27—State Senator Tom O’Mara (R,C,I-Big Flats) has been named by the Senate Majority leadership to serve on budget subcommittees to more fully examine the details of Governor Cuomo’s proposals for Environment/Agriculture/Housing, Economic Development/Taxes, and Mental Hygiene as New York’s budget adoption process gets underway in earnest over the next several weeks at the Capitol.

The Senate’s 10 individual budget conference subcommittees will begin meeting to stake out Senate priorities for this year’s budget negotiations and more fully set the stage for the joint budget conference committee process to settle Senate and Assembly differences over the state’s 2016-17 fiscal plan.  Joint budget conference committees are scheduled to start meeting on March 15.

O’Mara, a member of the Senate Finance Committee and chairman of the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee, said that his Senate budget committee assignments will offer opportunities to keep pushing for proposals that he’s backed throughout the past several years focused on tax cuts, mandate relief and regulatory reform to jump-start the upstate economy and focus on the development of key industries including agriculture, manufacturing, small business and tourism. 

He pointed to rankings released last week from the Tax Foundation showing that New York taxpayers pay the highest state and local taxes in the nation.  The combined state and local tax burden per capita in New York is nearly $7,000, according to the Foundation, while the national average is approximately $4,400.

“We’ve still got work to do.  The latest Tax Foundation findings delivered more bad news to New York State’s taxpayers and job creators.  Having the highest state and local tax burden in America is a huge strain on taxpayers and does not help us attract the businesses and manufacturers to create the jobs we desperately need for workers and their families locally and statewide.  We have to send a stronger message that New York’s serious about economic growth and long-term, sustainable private-sector job creation,” said O’Mara.