It was more than a budget address, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. But it had less detail than a budget address, experts said.

As he did in the State of the State, the governor laid out the case that New York is under attack from the new federal tax law, thanks to a controversial $10,000 cap on the state and local tax deduction that will hammer many high-income New Yorkers.

Generally, fiscal policy experts agreed that the governor spent little time elaborating on exactly how he planned to raise and spend New Yorkers’ money during the budget address, leaving them to wonder how Cuomo’s raft of proposals would meet his stated goals, as they and the rest of Albany poured over the notoriously dense budget documents.
“An understandably un-detailed budget presentation,” David Friedfel, the director of state studies at the Citizens Budget Commission, said shortly after the governor’s address. Friedfel also noted that the scandals surrounding state economic development investments and funding for homelessness were noticeably absent.

“The economic development funding is a concern. The state has continued to spend tremendous amounts of money with lackluster results,” Friedfel said, adding that he hoped the state would not end up increasing spending in that area. “It’s money that could be much better directed elsewhere.”

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo Tuesday outlined plans to close the state’s biggest budget deficit in more than half a decade amid slower tax collections.

Cuomo unveiled a $168 billion spending proposal for the 2019 fiscal year during his annual budget address Tuesday afternoon.

A Dec. 18 report by the Citizens Budget Commission noted that Cuomo previously tackled budget gaps by shifting costs from state operating funds or across fiscal years, along with utilizing one-time revenues. The nonprofit government watchdog estimates New York's shortfall will number between $4.4 billion to $6.3 billion before accounting for the tax overhaul impact.

That's the word Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, Moody's Investors Service, several lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo himself have used to describe the current budget year. The state is facing a projected $4.4 billion deficit, as well as cries for more investment in downstate transit systems and a health care infrastructure that is threatened by federal cuts.

Here are five things to watch:

1. How will he bridge the deficit?

This was the foremost question posed by David Friedfel, director of state studies for the Citizens Budget Commission. Cuomo already has told state agencies (once again) that they should prepare zero-growth budgets and, given the federal tax plan, said that tax increases cannot be considered.

Property values in New York City topped the $1 trillion mark for the third-consecutive year, a sign of a healthy amount of new construction, a strong rental market and soaring prices.

Homes, commercial buildings and utilities assessed by the city's Department of Finance are worth a combined $1.258 trillion, a 9.4 percent increase from last year, according to the tentative assessment roll the agency released on Tuesday. In dollars, the annual increase amounts to $108.4 billion.

The breakdown provided by the finance agency shows continued disparities between the tax burden and market value of the four classes of property.

One- two- and three-family homes, which routinely pay the lowest share of the total tax levy, had a combined value of $594.8 billion — nearly half the total of market values, and an increase of 10.4 percent from last year. The rise reflects an increase in sales prices, the agency said.

In the 2018 fiscal year, that class of property only paid 14.8 percent of the overall tax levy, according to the Citizens Budget Commission. Historically one-, two- and three-family houses have been burdened less than multi-family rentals because homeowners are more attuned to their property tax bills and politicians have tried to avoid hitting them with exorbitant tax increases when property values rise.

If President Donald Trump was the intended villain in Gov. Andrew Cuomo's election-year budget, Mayor Bill de Blasio appears to be its intended victim.

Cuomo's proposed $168 billion executive budget released Tuesday would impose significant liabilities on de Blasio and the city he governs by requiring it to assume more financial responsibility for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, according to budget watchdogs.

"This seems to be asking the city to vastly increase the amount of its general fund and capital budget dedicated to the transit authority," said Jamison Dague, the director of infrastructure studies at the nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission.

Dague was referring to the MTA's New York City Transit Authority, which operates its subways and buses. Cuomo's budget plan calls for the city of New York "to provide in full all funding required to meet the capital needs of the New York City Transit authority" in its five-year capital plans.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo presents his eighth state budget plan as governor Tuesday, a fiscal road map that must be able to address a worsening deficit, declining federal funding for state initiatives, rising unemployment in most areas of the state and an ever-hungry appetite for state dollars from education and health care sectors.

The governor, who is expected to seek a third term this fall, will also outline how he thinks the state should be respond in an end run fashion to Washington’s new tax law that hits high-tax states through new limits on the ability to deduct state and local taxes.

The governor and Legislature are heading into an election year, making significant budget cuts especially challenging,’’ said the Citizens Budget Commission, a fiscal watchdog group.

Cuomo’s budget director, Robert Mujica, issued a statement earlier this month noting that income tax payments had picked up in December, possibly because high-income earners were trying to pre-pay as much of their 2018 tax bill as possible to take advantage of deductions that went away on Jan. 1.

“This is not a windfall,” Mujica warned, explaining that a December jump would be offset by lower revenues going forward.

“These numbers will keep changing,” added David Friedfel, director of state studies for the Citizens Budget Commission watchdog group. “To a large extent, the biggest ‘to be determined’ is taxpayer behavior.”

When he opened the first span of the new Tappan Zee Bridge in August, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he wanted to hold a separate ceremony sometime in 2018 to celebrate the naming of this signature achievement of his administration after his late father.

The governor suggested perhaps June, around the date of his father’s birthday, would be a good time, six months before the $3.9 billion bridge is scheduled for completion, but five months before the election in which he will seek a third term.

In October, the Citizens Budget Commission released a report that projected TZB tolls would have to double, to around $10, to meet the yearly debt service on the loans and bonds used to build the $3.9 billion bridge. The alternative would be to levy a 24 percent increase across the Thruway.

Although the TZB has historically provided 20 percent of the Thruway Authority’s annual revenue, the commission recommended bridge tolls alone pay for the new bridge — starting now, rather than in 2020.

The onset of daylight savings time, the importance of volunteerism, the existence of raccoons, deer and other woodland creatures.

These are just a few of the issues on which Mayor Bill de Blasio has showered city advertising dollars since taking office in 2014, overseeing a nearly 200 percent spending increase over the course of his first term.

Whether or not government ads work is an open question.

"Like all expenditures in the budget, advertising spending should be carefully reviewed to assess its effectiveness and contained accordingly," Citizens Budget Commission analyst Maria Doulis told POLITICO, after reviewing the increase in ad spending.

If the president's federal tax overhaul plan is going to hit thousands of New Yorkers with higher tax bills, then New York will circumvent Washington by rewriting part of its complex tax code, Cuomo reasons.

People are using everything from “interesting” to “illegal” and “unworkable” to describe Cuomo’s still-in-the-works plan.

Unknown to most, said fiscal watchdog Carol Kellerman: “whether it’s doable and whether it solves the problem entirely.’’

Kellerman, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan group that monitors the state’s finances, said it’s uncertain how the payroll idea would work with freelancers and private contractors, as well as how it would treat investment income and capital gains. She noted others have raised questions about how companies would be able to lower the pay of minimum wage workers if wages are to fall to finance the initiative.

“It’s an intriguing idea,’’ said Kellerman, whose group has put together a panel of experts to offer input to the state as it works on a plan. “But we don’t know how employers are going to react to it, either. Will they say it’s double taxation or that a new payroll tax system is burdensome?’’

Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio and top NYCHA officials have blamed the heat problems on past neglect of the boilers and other infrastructure, which the housing authority lacks the money to replace.

Repairs to the boilers in the most danger of failing account for about $2 billion of the roughly $17 billion worth of building fixes NYCHA needs, the agency says. That total will increase to $25 billion when the housing authority releases its revised capital needs report later this month, Politico New York reported Monday.

Some $259 million — just 15 percent of the $1.7 billion NYCHA spent on building improvements from 2012 to 2016 — went to mechanical fixes, a category that includes repairs to boilers, elevators, gas lines and other infrastructure, according to a December report by the Citizens Budget Commission.

During the first two years of the de Blasio administration, the city's Economic Development Corp. gave The Handy Tool & MFG Co. a tax benefit worth $1.2 million over 25 years in a deal projected to create just two jobs.

Another company, Treasure Asset Storage, received $6.7 million in tax benefits under an agreement expected to add 15 jobs, which comes out to $450,000 per person.

Not all EDC economic development subsidies cost so much per job; they average less than $30,000. But even the Handy Tool and storage company tax breaks were classified by the agency as a net gain for the city, according to a report released last week by the Citizens Budget Commission. The watchdog group questioned that wisdom and suggested reforms for the city's job-creation policies.

"The city invests billions annually in programs and incentives for economic development, and the high cost of these efforts requires that they be managed carefully with a focus on cost-effectiveness," Riley Edwards, an associate researcher at the commission, wrote in the report.