“Today’s State of the State address by the governor covered a broad range of issues. I believe that there will be mutual agreement on some of the issues, but I will need additional details on others. As usual, I remain optimistic that the governor will be open to working with legislators and accepting of differing viewpoints in order to provide a successful outcome on many of the issues addressed today.

I’m excited the governor has put tax relief and tax reform, both for individual property owners and large and small businesses, on the table. However, missing from the discussion was comprehensive mandate relief for municipalities and school districts. In addition, it is important that we streamline, reform and eliminate the massive amount of bureaucratic, agency-adopted regulations that exist today in the State of New York, which place an immense burden on families, businesses and governments.

I’m also hopeful that the governor will commit to reforming the state’s education system, specifically by reforming the implementation of the Common Core Learning Standards. Although no mention of this was made in the State of the State message, I believe that the concerns of students, parents and educators need to be addressed as soon as possible.

The governor suggested in today’s address that ethics laws are in desperate need of reform. I am a co-sponsor of the Public Officers Accountability Act (Assembly Bill A.7393) which addresses a variety of ethics topics, including member item and campaign finance reform, implementation of term limits for legislative leaders, increased corruption penalties, and the establishment of a truly independent ethics commission. My colleagues and I have encouraged the governor and fellow legislators to take a look at our legislation and have called for its enactment into law.

Many of the issues and concerns addressed in today’s message are of statewide importance and are incredibly complicated; opinions on how to solve them vary widely across regions of the state. But we’ve solved complicated issues before in an acceptable manner to most, and I’m confident that we’ll be able to do it again. I look forward to working with Gov. Cuomo and my colleagues in the Senate and Assembly during this Legislative Session.”