Express bus service receives the most public subsidies of any form of public transit in the city at $11.79 per person, according to a recent report from the Citizens Budget Commission. By comparison, Metro-North receives $5.62, and LIRR $6.07. The cost of a single express bus ticket is also the most expensive bus ticket the MTA offers, at $6.75 per trip.

“Taxing the rich has become a way to redistribute wealth. It’s a fight against income inequality, not the Covid deficit,” said Kathryn Wylde, chief executive of the Partnership for New York City. “The Covid deficit has been filled by the federal government and by better-than-expected tax revenues.”

The federal government is providing $12.5 billion to the state government. The Citizens Budget Commission has estimated the state will run a $5.9 billion surplus during the next two fiscal years.

The state budget proposed by the Legislature looks to spend $208.3 billion in the next fiscal year, an increase of nearly 18% from the $177 billion this year.

It also said that “significant corporate and individual tax increases will make it far more difficult to restart the economic engine and reassemble the deep and diverse talent pool that makes New York the greatest city in the world.”

“We are not alone in this view; among others, the nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission has said these tax increases are ‘both unnecessary and economically risky,’ thanks to federal aid and higher than expected tax receipts in 2020,” it added.

Despite recent allegations against Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the state budget is still due by April 1, and lawmakers are at work. The Senate and Assembly have put out their one-house budget proposals.

“What we’re seeing from the legislative one-house proposals is that the Senate and the Assembly are much closer to one another than they are to what the Governor proposed for the budget in January,” said Citizens Budget Commission New York Senior Research Associate Patrick Orecki.

Orecki says clear similarities are shown in the revenue raiser plans.

“Both the Senate and the Assembly proposed a personal income tax increase, especially on high income earners, they included some increases in estate taxes, in corporate taxes, and a surcharge on capital gains income,” he said.

The NYPD’s total budget for the fiscal year 2020 added up to nearly $11 billion, which accounted for roughly 11.1% of the city’s overall budget, according to the Citizens’ Budget Commission. Last summer, after weeks of Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality, the Mayor’s Office announced that the NYPD would undergo $1 billion dollars in cuts and cost shifts, but Lander pointed out these reductions ended up amounting to a smaller figure of around $417 million.

“It’s impossible to believe plans for reform when we just aren’t telling the truth about what’s really happening,” he said.

Some watchdog groups disagree, arguing that the changes put forth by both the Senate and Assembly could cause problems for the cash-strapped state in the future.

“These tax increases are both unnecessary and economically risky,” said Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, a watchdog group. “The Legislature’s tax proposals present more risk than those proposed by the Governor. They are larger, broader than just the personal income tax, and permanent.”

"These tax increases are both unnecessary and economically risky," said Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, a watchdog group. "The legislature’s tax proposals present more risk than those proposed by the governor. They are larger, broader than just the personal income tax, and permanent."

At issue are budget proposals set to be adopted in the Senate and Assembly Monday which would make tax changes that would generate at least $6 billion annually. The proposals set the parameters for negotiations on a state budget, which is due April 1.

Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog, said federal aid approved last week obviated the need for tax increases in New York. The state will receive $12.5 billion under the stimulus package. Mr. Cuomo’s proposed budget counted on $6 billion spread across two fiscal years.

“The federal aid gives them three years to restructure their operations to be more efficient,” said Andrew Rein, the president of the Citizens Budget Commission, a financial watchdog. “If they don’t use this time to do that, they are going to be back to where they started, which is not having enough money to run the system because it’s too expensive.”

In New York, transit officials said that the latest infusion of federal aid will allow them to bring back some service on the Metro-North Railroad and the Long Island Rail Road, which suffered higher ridership losses than the subway or buses.

Patrick Orecki, from the Citizens Budget Commission, said this is also much higher than Cuomo’s increased tax proposal.

"The state’s tax base is already very dependent on high-income earners," Orecki said. "The state, already without these proposals, has some of the highest tax rates on personal income taxes and on corporate taxes in the country. So the question is also whether individuals and businesses that would be subject to these higher taxes have an even greater incentive to move to a different taxing jurisdiction."

Both recurring reductions would have a significant impact on New York City, which operates the nation’s largest public school system. The Department of Education is the largest agency in the city’s budget, and a substantial portion of its funding comes from state aid. Given the particularly hard toll the pandemic has taken on New York’s business districts and retail sector, coupled with the explosion of remote work, it may take a while for property taxes – which constitute the city’s largest tax revenue stream – to rebound.

“The city is going to be facing this multiyear revenue hit on the property tax, which it has not had during prior recessions, and so its ability to fill in if state aid is lower – which is what they have usually done with their own resources – is going to be more constrained,” said Ana Champeny, director of city studies at the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan fiscal monitor.

As a fiscal crisis looms in New York, the Biden administration just finalized another round of stimulus funding. The bill includes $130 billion in education aid for schools to reopen.

The American Rescue Plan provides some breathing room for New York to make some good, or bad, choices.

“This moment gives the state an opportunity to take stock and figure out how to correct the structural imbalance that even predated the pandemic,” Patrick Orecki, senior research associate for the Citizens Budget Commission told Capital Tonight.

Nearly $24 billion in total is earmarked for various levels of government in New York. Orecki says state leaders need to think about the $12-plus billion in unrestricted money coming to New York state as “an opportunity” to address both immediate and long-term problems.