The governor of New York presented a draft state budget.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo last week made a draft state budget. New York's main financial document includes 141,6 billion dollars. Expenditures of the budget this year increased by 2,8% or 4 billion dollars in monetary terms.

In his official address to the state in the Empire State Plaza, Albany, Cuomo touched on topics that, according to analysts, he carefully avoided during his first term as governor. In the course of his 84 minute talk, he talked about combating social inequality, plans for raising the minimum wage, and lowering taxes for the middle class.

Cuomo also suggested revising the law regarding the so-called Grand Jury. The governor believes that the decisions of such courts should be automatically reviewed if the jury did not admit the guilt of the suspect in the murder in cases involving the police. This initiative was a response to the shocking New York case of white police officer Daniel Pantaleo and black man Erik Garner who was killed while being detained. Later, the Grand Jury of Staten Island refused to indict Pantaleo, which caused a lot of public discontent in New York.

The head of state is also confident that the police should hire more members of racial and ethnic minorities, and bullet-proof glasses should be installed in police cars.

The Governor believes that it is necessary to reform the secondary education system, increasing financial aid to schools by 4,8%. Cuomo suggested revising the teacher performance assessment system. In his opinion, it should be based on 50% on the results of testing students' knowledge. Today, only 20% of the total index of teacher performance depends on the academic success of students.

The state budget surplus is 5,4 billion dollars. A third of this amount, according to Cuomo’s plan, will be aimed at improving the operation of the urban public transport system.

Cuomo also offered to support the middle class, providing an opportunity for tax breaks for families whose total income does not exceed 250 000 dollars per year. New Yorkers who belong to this category by income and own property can count on benefits if property taxes exceed 6% of their annual income. For these purposes, the budget laid 1,66 billion.

The Governor has proposed raising the minimum wage to $10,50 an hour in New York State and $11,50 in the metropolitan area. Today it stands at $8,75 statewide and should rise to $9 by the end of the year.

“If people work full time, they should not live in poverty,” Governor Cuomo said.