Gov. Cuomo on Tuesday scheduled a special session of the Legislature for Wednesday to pass what he hopes will be a quick and simple one-year extension of mayoral school control — but some lawmakers had other plans.
Cuomo issued a proclamation that forces both houses to take up a clean bill, even as several legislators said there’s a host of other items too important to ignore.
“I would hope that we don’t do simply an extension of mayoral control,” said state Senate Deputy Majority Leader John DeFrancisco (R-Syracuse) on the “Capitol Pressroom” radio show. “There are many, many other issues out there that have to be resolved, such as upstate taxes, the sales taxes, the . . . personal income tax in New York City.”
DeFrancisco also cited enhanced pensions for uniformed first responders and emergency legislation for flooding at Lake Ontario as matters that should be addressed.
“There’s other things that both the Assembly and Senate want to get done. Why not get them all done together at one time?” he said. “Otherwise, it’s just a waste of time.”
Deputy Senate Minority Leader Mike Gianaris (D-Queens) said Tuesday’s MTA terrifying subway derailment in Harlem made approval of emergency funds to repair the “crumbling” transit system even more essential.
“The MTA is crumbling and no one is implementing a plan to fix it. I’ve proposed one and I don’t think we should leave Albany until we fix it,” he said.
“I understand that the proclamation for the special session is vague enough for other things to come up . . . It seems to me to be just more Albany dysfunction. We’re coming back tomorrow, but no one knows exactly what for. It’s a mess.”
Cuomo left the door open to more issues being added by including in the proclamation the possibility of legislation on “other subjects as I may recommend.”
Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (R-LI), who has insisted that raising the charter-schools cap in New York City also be considered, declined to comment.
The mayor’s control over schools is set to expire Friday, at which point city officials would have to reconstitute a seven-member Board of Education on which de Blasio gets only two votes.
A spokesman for de Blasio called Cuomo’s proclamation “a big step in the right direction.”
But Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb (R-Ontario/Seneca) noted that every conversation about mayoral control throughout the year was linked with either charter schools or sales-tax extenders.
“So if we’re coming back to pass mayoral control separately, why not vote on charter schools? Why not vote on tax extenders?” he said.