ALBANY – Mayor Giuliani and Gov. Pataki brought their war here yesterday, giving each other the cold shoulder after Giuliani accused Pataki of dropping a budget bomb on the city.
The mayor did not meet with Pataki on his annual Albany lobbying trip because he said it would take at least an hour to make his case – and Pataki aides said the governor didn’t have that much time to spare. Instead, Giuliani met legislative leaders and ripped the proposed state budget.
“It’s a budget that really hurts the city in many, many ways,” Giuliani told a legislative committee.
“It’s going to create some substantial, real problems for us.”
Although the mayor met with legislative leaders, he made a significant departure from the past by leaving the governor off his schedule.
Last year, the state’s two most powerful Republicans huddled behind closed doors in the governor’s Capitol office and Giuliani publicly lavished praise on Pataki and his treatment of the city.
This year, Giuliani insisted the impact of Pataki’s budget is so damaging to the city that he needs an hour or two to make a full-scale detailed presentation to Pataki.
Pataki’s aides couldn’t arrange such a lengthy meeting yesterday – but both sides hope it will happen in a week or two.
Giuliani told legislators Pataki – for reasons the mayor said he didn’t know – has shortchanged the city far more in this budget than any of his previous four state budgets.
“It changes direction from where the governor was trying to go earlier in his administration,” Giuliani said. “It does damage to any sense of [city-state] partnership.”
Giuliani’s war cry comes as relations between him and Pataki – which have never been cozy – are worse than ever, aggravated by Pataki’s school investigation and the perception by Giuliani’s associates that Pataki is trying to derail the mayor’s possible Senate candidacy in 2000.
“You are going to have strains,” admitted state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Rensselaer), after meeting with Giuliani. “The important thing is they recognize that they have a mutual constituency.”
Giuliani and his budget director Bob Harding were not able to put a total dollar figure on the cost of Pataki’s budget to the city.
But it was clear the damage would run into the hundreds of millions of dollars in the coming fiscal year, mostly in education aid.
At a news conference later, Pataki defended his treatment of the city, insisting the $73 billion spending plan “helps the city.”
“We’ve seen a dramatic increase in state aid to all schools, particularly New York City schools,” Pataki said of his first four years in office. “We have treated all parts of the state fairly. … This is again a budget that helps the city.”
Pataki claimed he and Giuliani enjoy a “good working relationship.”
“It has never been my nature to feud with people,” Pataki said. “I know he’s unhappy about the Moreland Act Commission [investigating city schools] and I understand that.”
During a whirlwind lobbying trip to Albany, Giuliani met privately with Bruno and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan).
Giuliani is banking on the state Legislature to provide additional funds for the city as lawmakers alter Pataki’s budget plan over the next few months. The state 1999-2000 fiscal year begins April 1.
Giuliani said he could not explain why Pataki introduced a budget that treated the city so harshly, but added he did not think it was related to Pataki’s bid for national office, as some critics have suggested.
During testimony to the joint Assembly-Senate fiscal committee, Giuliani assailed Pataki’s proposed spending plan for massively shortchanging the city in state aid for education, welfare reform funds, Medicaid managed care, the cost of the city locking up state prison inmates, and other areas.
Many of the mayor’s complaints were focused on state education aid, including more than $700 million still owed to the city by the state, and he repeatedly turned his nose up at Pataki’s Moreland Commission probe of school fraud and mismanagement.