ALBANY — A proposal by Gov. Cuomo to provide taxpayer-financed college courses to prison inmates is dead in the state Senate, its leaders announced Monday.
“This is a nonstarter,” declared Senate co-leader Jeff Klein (D-Bronx).
“It wasn’t discussed [in budget negotiations],” the Senate’s other co-leader, Dean Skelos (R-Nassau) said.
The pronouncements by the leaders came just a week after the Senate rejected the DREAM Act bill, which would have set aside $25 million for college tuition assistance to the children of undocumented immigrants.
“Both are publicly toxic to the taxpayers of New York state,” said one Republican senator, suggesting there was no way legislators were going to stiff immigrant kids and then allow the same type of program for convicts serving time.
An administration official said it came as no surprise that higher education for prisoners didn’t get traction in a body that previously had nixed the DREAM Act.
Cuomo had pushed both proposals in his re-election year, when he’s hoping to run up a record winning margin.
The immigrant students would have been eligible for grants of up to $5,000 each year.
Officials also put the cost of the college classes for cons at $5,000 each a year.
Only those behind bars in 10 of the state’s 70 prisons would have been eligible for the program, which was modeled on one already in place and funded with private donations through Bard College.
There was no price tag attached, but records show the prison population in the state is about 54,000.
Supporters are still pushing for the DREAM Act to be included in the state budget, which is due April 1.
“We just had a long discussion about it, the governor and I,” said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
But both Skelos and Klein said it had no chance.
“We did not discuss that today. We need to focus on the issues at hand,” Klein said.
A Siena College poll found a sharp upstate-downstate split on the DREAM Act bill.
While it was backed statewide, 53-43 percent, upstaters voted it down, 66-31 percent.
In New York City, voters were overwhelmingly in favor, 72-23 percent.
State Sen. José Peralta (D-Queens), the DREAM Act’s prime sponsor, said there would have been fewer opponents if the poll made it clearer that the beneficiaries would be innocent kids.
“The result was skewed by the fact that the question didn’t distinguish between adult undocumented immigrants and their children,” he said.
Legislative leaders, who met with Cuomo Monday, said they were optimistic about reaching a deal on the $142 billion state budget by as early as Tuesday.