Hometown News: State Budget Summary

New York State lawmakers failed to pass an on-time state budget at midnight Tuesday. Voting in the state Senate to approve its 132-billion-dollar budget package was delayed when a state Senator representing the Bronx and Westchester was briefly hospitalized. Senator Ruth-Hassell Thompson received a standing ovation when she returned to the state Senate Chamber on Tuesday evening. But Republican State Senator Stephen Saland calls this year's state budget oversized and full of new fees hitting average New Yorkers.

The budget package needs all 32 Democratic state senators to vote in support of the legislation to move to the Governor's desk under the state Constitution. The state Senate reconvenes at 9 a.m., this morning after adjourning at 10 p.m., last night. The delay also cost state Democrats bragging rights of approving an on-time budget.

Two business groups are bashing the state budget agreement which was announced Sunday in Albany. Unshackle Upstate and the Business Council of New York State say the plan is one of the worst ever created. The new budget fills a two-year 17-point-seven-billion-dollar budget gap and reduces the state's multi-year deficit by about 80-percent. It also adds about seven-billion dollars in new taxes. Unshackle Upstate has started a media campaign against the budget in five Upstate cities, which include Syracuse and Binghamton.