ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo will move within the next few weeks to end the “sham” budget process that has produced sky-high artificial deficits, aides said yesterday.
Cuomo will propose legislation that would change the system involving what are known as Article 7 bills, which accompany the budget when it is submitted to the Legislature.
He revealed Monday that most of the state’s widely forecast $10 billion budget deficit was the result of automatic “sham” spending increases that have no bearing on the state’s fiscal reality.
Unlike the budget itself, which has a legal life of just one year, Article 7 bills become “permanent law” upon adoption and remain in effect until changed or repealed.
Cuomo’s budget director, Robert Megna, said the Article 7 changes would substitute the widely used Medical Consumer Price Index formula for the nearly impenetrable and complex set of some 200 measurements used for decades to project cost hikes in the $50 billion-plus Medicaid program.
The current formula, if followed, would have increased Medicaid by almost 14 percent, while the new system would limit growth to about 4 percent annually, Megna said.
State education spending, nearly $20 billion annually, would also be tied to a new formula, according to Megna.