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Hello and welcome to Max Politics. This is Ben Max coming to you from New York Law School and its center for New York City and State Law. Thanks for tuning in for the show. Speaking here on Tuesday, April 21, 2026. My guest today on the show is New York State Senator John Lew, a Queens Democrat who chairs the Senate's New York City Education Committee. We will discuss the status of state budget negotiations as Governor Kathy Hochul and the legislative majorities in the Senate and Assembly work toward a spending and policy package. We are a few weeks into the new state fiscal year already and as usual, the state budget is late, but lawmakers have been passing what are known as budget extenders to keep paying the state's bills while the new budget is put together. That budget will include about $265 billion in spending, with the two largest buckets being local education aid, Medicaid, and it will include compromise on a variety of fiscal and policy issues, including some related to education, though there are also some education issues that may get bumped out of the budget and into the legislative session to follow, which runs through early June, along with education aid formulas and how much aid New York City will receive from the state. Other key education decisions to be made or not made in this budget agreement and include whether the state will grant the city more time to meet legal class size reduction requirements or perhaps grant the city more money to help meet those requirements on or closer to the current legal timeline based on a state law passed in 2022 and very much championed by my guest today, State Senator John Lew. And it had a planned six year incremental implementation rollout whereby the percentage of classrooms across the city in compliance with the new class size caps had to increase each year. Also on the education docket is whether the state will extend, perhaps with modifications, mayoral control of New York City schools, which is set to expire at the end of June of this year. The governor has proposed a clean four year extension with no changes of mayoral control of New York City schools, and Mayor Zoram Hamdani has said he would like that. Mamdani, who's expressed opposition to mayoral control in the past, has changed his mind now that he's actually mayor of New York City, responsible for an education system of roughly 900,000 students and 1600 schools. Those education issues and more with Senator Lew ahead and also a quick broader discussion of how he thinks the new mayor and new schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels are doing in their first few months in charge of the school system. And I'll ask Senator Lew about other top issues in state budget negotiations. There's a variety of outstanding policy matters being negotiated, including on some of Governor Hochul's top priorities this year, like adjustments to the laws related to auto insurance, environmental and green transition laws, state environmental review law that can delay or dissuade housing development, and much more. Senator John Lew ahead in just a moment. Speaking of state budget negotiations, by the way, in case you missed it, I very recently spoke here on the show with the state Senate Majority Leader, Andrea Stewart Cousins, one of the three most important people who negotiate the state budget, along with the governor and the Assembly Speaker, Carl Hastie. And we got into a lot on the status of some of these major issues in state budget negotiations and a lot about how the state Senate and the state may help New York City with its budget challenges, as well as a lot of these policy considerations and how the governor has infused her top priorities into state budget negotiations, as always happens in Albany. And speaking of Mayor Mamdani, recently on the show, I did an episode on Mamdani's first 100 days as mayor and what comes next. And I was joined by two great veteran journalists for that conversation, Sally Goldenberg of the New York Times and Bob Hart of New York One. Those and a bunch of other good recent episodes in the Max Politics feed for you to check out after you listen to this one with Senator John Lew, who's been in the state Senate since 2019. He represents the 16th state Senate district of Northeast Queens, which includes some or all of the neighborhoods of Flushing, Bayside and more. And prior to joining the State Senate, John Lew was New York City comptroller for eight years, a citywide tenure that came after he was a member of the New York City Council. So he's got a lot of varied government experience. And he was also a candidate for mayor in the way back when 2013 Democratic primary for Mayor State Senator John Lew is with me now, returning to the show. He's in Albany, where he's part of negotiations over the state budget, which will be a massive $265 billion or so spending and policy package that will come together any day or week now through compromise among Governor Hochul and the two Democratic majorities of the state Legislature. Senator Liu is a Democrat from Queens and chairs the Senate's New York City Education Committee. Senator LOU thanks for joining me. How are you?