Legislative Update from NYSAR for Week Ending 4/4/08

Government Affairs update for the week ending April 4, 2008
At The Capital

Senate passes NYSAR-supposed legislation
The following action on real estate-related legislation occurred recently in Albany:

Commission Protection Act (A.7519/S.4874) - This past week the Senate unanimously passed the NYSAR-supported Commission Protection Act. The bill addresses the clear need to strengthen the affidavit of entitlement law in an open, predictable and fair manner to all involved parties.

Sex Offender Ban (A.1269/S.1531) - The Senate also passed the NYSAR-supported bill to ban misdemeanor sex offenders from obtaining or holding a real estate license.

NYSAR staff will continue to advocate the importance of these pieces of legislation with lawmakers in the Assembly as the bills remain in the Assembly Judiciary Committee.

Lawmakers still passing state budget

State legislators began passing budget bills this past week. While they missed the Tuesday deadline for an “on time” budget, they are moving forward. Lawmakers passed the health budget bill to increase aid to various healthcare facilities. The bill includes a tax hike on health insurance policies to subsidize spending. In addition, the state budget will include a $29.6-million increase in aid for cities across the state to help offset local property taxes. Several issues have bogged down the process including: how to fairly allocate aid to school districts, Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to charge motorists $8 to enter Manhattan and how to technically generate enough revenue to pay for the state’s $124 billion spending plan. Budget details have been kept mostly under wraps, keeping members of the public and lawmakers themselves in the dark. NYSAR staff continues to sift through budget bills as they become available to the public. At this point, it appears that no new real estate-related taxes have been included in the spending plan released thus far. Staff will continue to review budget bills as they are released to the public over the next few days.

This article is from NYSAR's website @ www.nysar.com and can be found under the Governmental Affairs section.