ALBANY, N.Y. (NEXSTAR) — A new bill in the New York State Senate to make state legislators and the governor forfeit their pay aims to force the state government to pass its annual budget by April 1. Republican State Senator Bill Weber introduced S8521 on Friday.

That deadline dates to a 1943 constitutional amendment pushed by Gov. Thomas Dewey. The budget for the next year is supposed to be all set by the time the state fiscal year end on March 31. Missing April 1 forces state agencies into temporary borrowing.

Since January 2023, New York legislators don’t receive salaries after April 1 until both houses pass the budget and the comptroller certifies funding. In the previous legislative session, their wages were withheld for multiple pay periods until the budget passed in May.

Weber pro

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