New York schools and hospitals could see 20% cut in funding, governor warns

New York schools and hospitals could see a 20 percent decrease in funding without federal assistance, the governor warned.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has put pressure on President Donald Trump and the federal government in recent days because of the assistance his state desperately needed in order to properly fight the coronavirus.

To further put pressure on Washington, Mr. Cuomo announced on Monday schools, hospitals, and local governments could see a 20 percent decrease in the budget unless the next stimulus packaged included unrestricted funding for states.

“If they exclude state government again, our state forecast will project without any federal funds you can’t spend what you don’t have if you were to do allocate the shortfall relatively on a flat basis across the need, you would be cutting schools 20 percent, local governments 20 percent and hospitals 20 percent and this is the worst time to do this,” the governor said.

“You shouldn’t make us choose between small businesses, and big businesses, and people working on the frontlines,” he added.

Congress has battled in recent days in passing more money for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which would go towards small businesses. But this funding does not include more money for the state governments, and Mr. Cuomo said that was a serious problem.

Democrats have reportedly been fighting for more funding for states, but Republicans, and the Trump administration, were not eager to give additional money at this time.

“We’ll be saving that for a later date,” Mr. Trump said on Sunday.

If the deal with Congress was passed as is, Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin said a majority of funding would go towards the PPP, but there would also be money for testing and hospitals.

Mr. Cuomo said frontline workers should be prioritized in the stimulus package, which was why more money needed to go towards the states.

“Don’t forget teachers and police officers and healthcare workers and transit workers … that is who I fund,” he said. “Our frontline workers are our heroes. They are the ones carrying us through this crisis.”