“The winds of change have hit Albany.”

- Gov. David Paterson, Aug. 19, 2008

While the dust has yet to settle on the special session of the New York State Legislature called to address the state's current fiscal crisis (as this is written many of the state's leading newspapers have different amounts pegged at what has been cut), two things will be clear: there will be a lot of self-congratulatory comments and the work is far from complete.

Two words commonly used in many news reports to describe what the Legislature did this week are: rare and remarkable. While the former may be correct, the latter is far from it. Yes, give the Legislature credit for going back to Albany (at the call of the governor) and making at least $427 million in cuts. It is true, that in any year, especially an election year, asking the Legislature to make cuts is rare. But then again, a looming multi-year deficit of $26.2 billion should get them to act. But “remarkable?” Hardly.

What was done on Tuesday is still far short of what Paterson called for when he spoke to taxpayers on July 29. He was asking for $600 million in cuts, on top of the $630 million he cut from state agencies #- in essence Paterson has made more cuts than the Legislature. Even with these cuts, this year's budget, which started on April 1, is still 4.5 percent higher than last year's. Over the last few years, governors and the Legislature have hiked spending at two and three times the rate of inflation.

While some early headlines blared that there would be savings, over at least the next two years, of nearly $2 billion, many of those savings will be realized next year, not this, again, an election year. Most have to still be enacted, and won't be until after this Election Day. By the way, even with $2 billion in cuts, the state still will have a $24 billion fiscal hole it still needs to address.

While some in Albany are touting that the Legislature didn't cave to “special interests,” it looks as if they left largely untouched the two largest chunks of state spending #- education and health care, that most fiscal watchdogs agree need to be addressed and reformed, but were not.

So while Paterson may want to indicate from his above quote that things have changed, to what degree is still unclear. If anything there may be a puff or two going the other way, but the skys all around are dark and ominous, when it comes to the state's fiscal health.

Cosentino is a former mayor of Auburn and can be contacted at cozguytho@aol.com