For 15 years, the Queens Supreme Courthouse has worn its decay openly. Its limestone facade crumbles bit by bit, a net dropped over its Corinthian columns catching what the building can no longer hold together.

Inside, the Queens Surrogate’s Court — where the dead’s money determines the living’s fortunes — operates under its own type of slow collapse.

When Governor Kathy Hochul took office in 2021, she didn’t want to pick fights with the legislature. She rejected less than 60 of the nearly 900 bills the legislature passed that year, the lowest veto rate in at least a quarter-century. Meanwhile, she negotiated amendments to more than 150 bills — a record high.

But it didn’t take Hochul long to shed that reticence with the veto pen. In her first three full years in office, she axed an average of roughly one in seven bills that went to her desk, a higher rate than her recent predecessors.

This year, she vetoed 124 standalone bills as well as 15 line items in the state budget.