Brian Miller on WNYC.

We're going to check in now on some of the sticking points in the New York State

budget negotiations now running six days late and a number of big things at stake for New Yorkers.

With me now as Politico's Albany Bureau Chief, Nick Reesman, to talk about Governor

Hockel's affordability push and her standoff with the left over taxing the rich, plus early

pension access for public school teachers. Interesting debate that's getting a little bit of press.

We'll dive down on that a little bit.

Also buffer zones around houses of worship.

And how Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman is quietly all of a sudden

trying to scrub some Trump from his campaign website, Nick reports.

Nick Raceman from Politico is good to have you. Welcome back to WNYC.

Hey there, Brian. Thanks for having me. Can we go right to this early pension access for public

school teachers? They want to lower the retirement age?

That's right. There's a couple things that they want to do here. This all dates back to

2012 when then Governor Andrew Cuomo pushed through this less generous pension tier called

Tier 6, and it was meant to save money over several decades what happened

was labor over the last 12 years or so has really tried to chip away at some of the tier six savings

they have argued that it has made it harder to recruit public employees, not just teachers,

but really anybody who works for either the state government or for a local government.

That could be a school district.

It could be a town.

It could be New York City.

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