“While I am proud of the work my colleagues and I made to secure increased funding for agricultural programs, upstate schools and local highway improvement funds, I could not and still do not support this budget as a whole. I think leaders could have worked harder together to create a spending plan that would better serve New Yorkers while lowering their tax burdens.

“In this budget, there was a lack of meaningful relief from unfunded state mandates which consumes most of our local revenue. That relief could have freed up local tax dollars so we could invest in rejuvenating our communities and schools while lowering local property taxes. While the $350 tax rebate offered in this budget isn’t bad – New York shouldn’t have been collecting such high taxes from middle-income families in the first place. This so called middle-class tax rebate plan, which could benefit households with incomes as large as $300,000, is politically motivated and conveniently schedules checks to hit homes right before the 2014 state elections. This isn’t how we should be conducting the business of the people.

“Several taxes were set to expire, but are now extended, including a utility assessment tax that alone will cost homeowners and small businesses $1.7 billion. This budget sweeps money from the dedicated workers compensation fund to pay for the state’s credit bill. That money should have been used to reduce the high burden of premiums that strap our small-business owners and have hindered their growth.

“Lastly, and most troubling to me, was the clear disregard for the care of those with developmental disabilities, who faced the greatest cuts in this budget. The governor and legislative leaders should have looked for other places to trim spending so that $90 million worth of funding could have been restored to our most vulnerable.

“It seems as if every opportunity to propel our communities forward with growth and renewal and to show compassion was ignored or met with indifference. This is not how government should operate; and I encourage the governor to look at his budget honestly and ask himself, yet again, is something done in haste, like his gun control law, better than taking the time allotted to us to get it done correctly and in the best interests of the people of New York?”