Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Governor Kathy Hochul approved New York's 2025–26 fiscal budget on Friday. The budget comes in at roughly $254.3 billion, an increase of more than $10 billion from last year.
The budget includes plans to close three NYS prisons; however, Hochul declined to announce which ones.
"I have to look at a lot of factors. First of all, when any prison is closed, there will be no job losses. I need every single person who is a corrections officer to transition either to an adjoining facility or to have consolidations, and that's my focus right now, and making sure that we look at the economics of what we're doing, the prison population, the demand, and a lot of other variables. There's a whole process that is involved in that," stated Hochul during a stop in Buffalo Friday.
The budget also includes Buffalo’s hotel bed tax and parking authority. When asked why she supported Mayor Scanlon's plan over Sen. Sean Ryan's, she said, "That plan showed up at the last minute, very last minute, and the mayor had been promoting his financial package for a number of months."
Hochul explained that Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes also promoted the plan and told her she thinks it's what's best for the community.
"[Peoples-Stokes] was terribly afraid of a tax increase that could otherwise ensue on the people in this part of buffalo, her district. I believe that. So this was helping the mayor execute the plan that he has, and it had already been talked about at our leadership tables for weeks, and it was not a last minute plan. It was well thought out."
Scanlon said he’s optimistic the Council will approve the city's budget in the coming weeks.
"Now that they have a little more finality on the state budget, they can continue their deliberations moving forward," stated Scanlon Hopefully in the next couple of weeks, they'll approve the budget. I'm sure there will be some tinkering with it, obviously, but I think I feel very confident about where we're headed."