The New York state Capitol, May 6, 2022.

The state budget is late again this year, by five weeks and counting. The process has been broken for a long time. It needs to be fixed – and the good news is that it can be.

Over the past three decades, the budget process has exceeded the April 1 constitutional deadline in more than 2/3 of those years. At times the delay has been days or a couple of weeks. In other years the delay has stretched well into the summer months.

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Does it matter? Yes.

Aside from being an embarrassment and inconvenience for state legislators and the governor, it is a violation of law. Late budgets cause havoc for school districts and municipalities across the state, which cannot responsibly adopt their own fiscal plans without knowing the amount of state aid they can expect. Local service organizations have their finances frozen when municipalities are left in limbo. Sometimes........

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