President Donald Trump’s historic cuts to federal benefits put massive holes in New York’s safety net. But while budget proposals from the Senate and Assembly would beef up the state’s investments in health care and food security, neither would fully avert the fallout.

Governor Kathy Hochul, whose agenda this year centers on affordability, has maintained that the state cannot afford to backfill federal cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Her January budget reflected that position.

The state legislature is proposing a major increase in funding to help immigrants defend themselves in court amid President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign. The state Senate and Assembly each proposed a budget increase of $110.8 million to fund immigrant services, primarily legal assistance. But their proposals leave unresolved how far the state is willing to go to shield immigrants from federal enforcement.

The immigrant services funding boost would more than double last year’s allocation, bringing the total to $183 million. It would allow legal services providers to significantly increase the number of people they’re able to represent in immigration court.

“This is nation-leading funding,” said Kelsey Pirnak, advocacy manager for the Vera Institute of Justice. The money could pave the way for New York to pass legislation to give immigrants a right to legal representation, as exists in criminal court, Pirnak said.

State lawmakers have signed off on the governor’s sweeping child care plan with few changes, but they remain divided on how to best fund New York schools.

Foundation Aid, the formula the state uses to fund more than 700 school districts, distributes money based on factors such as regional salaries, poverty rates, and student attendance. Last year, lawmakers approved two changes recommended in a state-commissioned study on modernizing the formula — adjusting the poverty metric and providing extra support for English language learners — while leaving dozens of other recommendations on the table.

With the deadline to pass New York’s state budget legislation less than a month away, governing bodies aren’t battling over the criminal justice system as they have in the past. Yet they also aren’t proposing major reforms, even as the state’s prisons are enduring one of their most tumultuous periods in half a century.

Two killings by guards and a three-week corrections officer strike left the prison system in crisis last year. After the first killing, Governor Kathy Hochul called for reform, promising that she would “not be satisfied until there has been significant culture change” within the system. She expedited the rollout of body-worn cameras, hired consultancies to review prison operations, and signed into law a limited omnibus package that expanded outside oversight bodies’ powers and responsibilities.

New York state lawmakers want to keep their foot on the gas — er, accelerator pedal.

Senate and Assembly Democrats are so far rejecting Governor Kathy Hochul’s push for a budget-season rollback of the state’s climate mandates, and are instead seeking renewed funding to keep inching the state toward its emissions targets.

As expected, neither chamber included language in their responses to Hochul’s budget proposal — known as “one-house budgets” — that would amend New York’s flagship climate law. They are both seeking to add $1 billion in funding for the clean energy transition, renewing a major commitment from last year’s budget that Hochul left out this year.

Governor Kathy Hochul says the time has come to “sound the alarm.”

New Yorkers’ energy bills are spiking, and moving ahead with the state’s climate law is only going to make things worse, she says. Her evidence: A memo released by the state energy authority NYSERDA in late February, which claims that some New York households could face $4,000 or more in increased upfront energy costs by 2031 if the state were to follow the law as written.

“For us to meet the goals on the time frame that was set by the legislature, there’s going to be enormous costs to families. Enormous,” she told reporters last week. “I just need a reality check.”

State lawmakers gave their stamp of approval to many of the tax increases pushed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, adding fuel to his campaign to pressure Governor Kathy Hochul into approving the revenue-raisers.

In their budget proposals released Monday night, the state Senate and Assembly both included tax increases for high earners and corporations. The income tax hikes are smaller than what Mamdani is seeking, while the business tax increases match the mayor’s recent scaled-down demands. They’re both similar in scope to the legislature’s proposals last year.

Both houses also voiced support for pilot programs to make some buses fare-free, although they stopped short of meeting Mamdani’s goal of ending fares entirely.