I am once again leaving Albany upset not just at the contents of the state budget, but the secretive process in which it is crafted by three and sometimes four downstate leaders. Continuing the three-men-in-a-room budget process is a continuation of the kind of government secrecy that led to the conviction of both former legislative leaders just last year. The people of our community and state deserve an open and transparent budget process with Western New York and upstate representatives.

A lot of the issues within the budget could be solved with an invitation to upstate leaders. We see a continuation of funding for the SAFE Act in this budget. If reporters and upstate representatives had a chance to relay that to the public, and we were able to have an open debate during daylight hours, the people would know. We could have stopped that or at least made it less politically expedient. Instead, we witnessed several reporters outside a shut door waiting for the leaders to hold brief press gaggles where limited details were shared. If it isn’t good enough to talk about, if it isn’t good enough to tell the public, it isn’t good enough to vote on.

The budget time crunch was largely meaningless this year. There was no reason to keep the Senate overnight and no reason to keep the Assembly there until 5 a.m. only to return again at 9 a.m. We knew the budget was going to be late, but the Albany powers that be would rather these bills be debated after their constituents have retired for the night. This is not the way the people expect their government to run. We have procedures that allow each piece of legislation to be held for three days before being voted on, but at the behest of the governor, the bills were voted on mere hours after being printed. We were left in the dark both figuratively and literally throughout the budget process. Sometimes our staff had mere hours to read and brief us on bills containing hundreds of pages.

Albany seems to be on this repetitive loop of shady backroom deals and secrecy. Several government reform groups have visited the Capitol this year expressing regret that we have not acted on our ‘Watergate Moment,’ but I would not go that far, I would say those in power refuse to act and they ignore the will of the people. Many of us in the Assembly Minority Conference have offered reforms; I sponsor legislation to strip convicted politicians of their taxpayer-financed pensions. We know the people in our communities deserve better, and the sooner we can reform the process the better our budgets will be.

To discuss this or any other state issue, please call my hometown office at 716-655-0951 or drop by 411 Main Street here in East Aurora.