State budget finally passes.

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday Morning with us Today’s Senator George Burrello, currently a New York State Senator representing District fifty seven upstate New York. But chap Tacua. Did I say it right? Senator? I mean I’m still trying to say it right.

0:16 Speaker 2 It’s Chautauqua and no problem.

0:18 Speaker 1 All these das tell us, give us an update, what’s going on in Western New York? Give us an update what’s going on in Aubany. Is New York going to survive?

0:30 Speaker 2 Well, you know, I’m hopeful that that we are going to survive, but this budget isn’t giving me any additional hope. You know, we had a budget that was over a month late, and largely because the governor was holding out for what I thought were some very important things, but in the end she caved. The biggest thing on the

0:46 agenda was performs to our criminal justice system, in including the ridiculous discovery reforms that allowed thousands of violent felons to walk free because of a ridiculous, unrelated small technicality that dismissed cases, particularly in New York City, where eighty four percent of domestic abusers are walking away thanks to these discovery changes that were made a couple of years

1:10 ago by one party rule, where half of drunk drivers in Manhattan are walking away because of discovery changes. So I credit the governor for trying. But in the end she gave in and she went on a victory tour with das from around the state saying that she got what she wanted, and in the end it was gutted

1:25 and she got pretty much nothing. You know.

1:27 Speaker 2 The success she did have was involuntary commitment. She got mostly what she wanted for involuntary commitment, which would allow the law enforcement officials and mental health professionals to take people off the streets that are clearly incapable of taking care of themselves and that unfortunately sometimes become violent. So that is one victory. The mask ban. We’ve seen these

1:49 these these terrorists that are terrorizing our college campuses. You’ve seen criminals that are masked for decades. New York State had a ban on wearing masks. That went away, of course during the pandemic, but now the Democrats in charge don’t want that mask band to come back, and it is unfortunately created too many opportunities where people have gotten

2:09 away with hainous things like from trashing and intimidating students on college campuses to committing crimes, particularly in New York City. So unfortunately, we spent a lot of money two hundred and fifty four billion dollars more than a quarter of trillion dollars in this new budget and didn’t get what the governor wanted to begin with.

2:33 Speaker 1 I’m worried mostly about taxes. I’m worried mostly about is the thirty two billion dollar tax going through. I guess it’s going right in our payroll taxes for the MTA.

2:48 Speaker 2 Yes, that’s right. We already have an MTA payroll tax, and the Democrats are increasing it. Any employer that is in the MTA region is now going to be paying more money, and this is going to raise the cost of doing business. But it’s also a burden on employers and employees. And for what for the most wasteful, corrupt

3:07 mass transit system in the world. The New York City MTA is the most constantly mass transit system in the world. We also have billions upon billions of dollars annually of waste, fraud and abuse, thousands upon thousands of no show jobs.

3:20 It’s like the mafia runs the MTA. You have no show jobs people thousands of people that they cannot prove actually exist and show for work today that get a paycheck. Beyond that, you’re looking at the fairoviasion issue. Nearly a billion dollars with a B every year in fairovasion. And what do my Democrat colleagues do about it. Well, they

3:38 actually outlawed using facial recognition software so that the MTA is not allowed to use facial recognition software for the purpose of being able to catch fer evators.

3:48 Speaker 1 Has anybody ever done an audit on the MTA?

3:53 Speaker 2 That is what myself and my Republican colleagues have been calling for, particularly my Long Island colleagues that have been saying it’s we need to do a forensic audit of the MTA, but of course the governor and Democrats won’t even talk about that. That’s what’s needed. If that happened, we could probably save several billion dollars every year if

4:10 we could do in a forensic audit and start targeting the waste fraud and abuse. But you got to remember, there’s a lot of people making a lot of money off of that waste, fraud and abuse in the MTA, So it’s going to be a difficult lift, but at the end of the day, New Yorkers deserve an audit

4:22 of the MTA.

4:24 Speaker 1 I agree with you one hundred percent. So when is the budget going to be officially passed?

4:29 Speaker 2 Well, we passed the budget last week. Now the governor is going to sign it. There’s actually ten total bills, so she will sign those. There’s always a chance that she could veto one, although I think it’s unlikely. There were allowed negotiations in the process to get to where they are. But you know, we waited this extra time

4:47 and we were told it was going to be worth the weight, but clearly it isn’t.

4:50 Speaker 1 Once again understood, Well, thank you so much, Satator for coming on and thank you for keeping an eye on things in all and we looked at you to get the other side of the story. Thank you so much, anytime, Thank you,