Mammoth $254B NY state budget revealed, goes up for vote: Albany at its cynical worst

The bulk of the mammoth $254 billion state budget deal was unveiled Wednesday with some last minute self-serving quietly slipped into the batter before Albany lawmakers were set to finally vote on it.The spending plan documents — nicknamed “The Big Ugly” in capital lingo — provide a last-minute, warts-and-all look at much-anticipated legislation focused on New York City’s mental health crisis, recidivism problems and more.Gov.Kathy Hochul ran a victory lap Wednesday after a deal to revamp the state’s discovery laws — a move to combat a slew of criminal cases that have been getting dismissed on technicalities.

The tweaks caused a weeks-long impasse on the overall mammoth budget deal.“I said all along I would hold up a $250 billion budget on this issue,” she said.Sources have hinted to The Post that the budget’s final price tag will actually be more than the $254 billion hinted by Hochul.The discovery changes will prevent criminal cases from being thrown out over trivial mistakes and narrow how much evidence prosecutors must turn over to defense attorneys.Involuntary commitment standards – the rules by which severely mentally ill people can be forced into psychiatric care against their will – will be expanded and loosened under the agreement.Hochul and state lawmakers reached the deal after months of backroom talks prompted in part by violence in the subways, random attacks on the city’s streets and Mayor Eric Adams using his bully pulpit to push for changes to involuntary commitment rules.The budget was due April 1, but it went far over that deadline — a delay that state Sen.Jim Skoufis (D-Orange) lambasted.“I’m sick and tired of one individual – the Governor – superseding the will of up to 213 duly elected Senators and Assembly Members,” he said in a statement.

“The current operating procedure is nothing short of authoritarian.”Albany’s single-party Democratic rule also let Hochul, state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie...