ALBANY — Sorry if you’re bored, Shelly!
Even as the more than two dozen dignitaries and guests pictured here pay rapt attention, Shelly Silver acts like a petulant child yesterday, defiantly turning his head away as Gov. Cuomo delivers his first State of the State Address and brings up a very sore subject — ethics reform.
The powerful Assembly speaker has steadfastly refused to disclose his outside income from a Manhattan law firm — which he’d have to do under Cuomo’s reform package.
Silver, flanked by Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos, to his right, and Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, frowned as he appeared to turn a deaf ear to Cuomo’s pleas.
The governor’s high-octane speech and the speaker’s rude response could come to symbolize what is expected to be the central conflict in Albany as Cuomo pushes a cost-cutting, tax-capping, business-friendly agenda through a recalcitrant and spend-happy Legislature long dominated by Silver.
The 47-minute address at the Empire State Convention Center — the first time it was not delivered in the Assembly chamber — was open to hundreds of members of the public instead of just lobbyists and legislators.
“New York has no future as the tax capital of the nation,” Cuomo said. “Our people cannot afford to pay more taxes.”
He announced the formation of panels tasked to deal with some of the most notorious drivers of state spending.
These include requirements that cash-strapped localities spend money they don’t have and the state won’t provide for things they don’t want or need — like pension sweeteners.
He’s also going after the $135 billion-a-year, labyrinthine web of overlapping state agencies.
Hoping to win over the opposition even before the battles begin, Cuomo revealed that his panels will include representatives of unions and other special-interest groups. They will be asked to help draft a plan to cut the state’s $10 billion deficit.
The job of one panel will be to slash some $2 billion from the massive and fast-growing Medicaid program.
That panel will be staffed by members of the state hospital association and the powerful health-care employees union, 1199/SEIU, the very groups that usually lead the charge against such cuts.
Cuomo set himself a daunting task — not only to revive the state’s economy, but to turn Albany’s sleazy reputation around 180 degrees, from a laughingstock to a respected state capital.
“We have to relearn the lesson our founders knew and we have to put up a sign that says New York is open for business,” Cuomo said. “We get it. And this is going to be a business-friendly state.”
The presentation was sprinkled with humor, including one PowerPoint image featuring the governor and legislative leaders as battleships passing in the night while special interests rain missiles down on him. That one got even Silver’s attention. The speaker smiled.
Cuomo’s PowerPoint presentation ticked off troubling facts about the state’s massive financial woes:
* Taxes are 66 percent higher than national average.
* Pension costs exploded 476 percent from 1999 to 2013. They’re now $6.2 billion.
* State spending was nearly twice personal-income growth over the past decade.
* New York is No. 1 in spending on education but 34th in student performance.
* The state is No. 1 in Medicaid spending, but only 21st in results.
* There are a whopping 10,500 local governments in the state.
* Two million people have abandoned the state over the past decade.
The speech won praise from a wide range of New Yorkers present, including students, home owners and business leaders.
“I’ve never been prouder to be a New Yorker,” said Kyle McKenzie, a 19-year-old upstater who won a ticket to the speech.
Mayor Bloomberg, who was also present, said Cuomo approached the state’s challenges like a business CEO.
“I couldn’t be more optimistic,” Bloomberg said. “I thought Andrew laid out the problems [with] clear vision to drastically transform our state.”
In another break with tradition, Silver (D-Manhattan) and Skelos (R-LI) addressed the crowd.
Skelos broadly embraced Cuomo’s agenda. Silver pledged cooperation and notably endorsed his call for spending cuts, a property-tax cap and ethics reforms, but failed to offer key specifics.
Democratic insiders say Silver has been pushing behind the scenes for a watered-down tax cap and ethics legislation that won’t require lawmakers to fully detail personal income.
He apparently paid attention to at least part of Cuomo’s address. “I thought it was a great speech, a strong vision for New York,” he said.
Cuomo stressed cooperation with the Legislature, generating a standing ovation from Democratic lawmakers.
Just before the speech, rebellion rocked the state Senate as four moderate Democrats publicly trashed their leadership and formed a breakaway legislative conference supportive of Cuomo’s agenda.
Members of the group, led by Sen. Jeffrey Klein (D-Bronx), said they could no longer in good conscience remain with Senate Minority Leader John Sampson (D-Brooklyn), whom they slammed as ineffectual and tolerant of corruption.
Additional reporting
by Fredric U. Dicker