Holy crap…NY is going to shut down?

New York government prepares to shut down

After five months of negotiations, ten emergency budget extensions and a threat of a government shutdown, New York lawmakers were still not close to approving a new budget, Gov. David Paterson’s office said Friday.

Over the past 30 years, the New York state budget has been approved on time just four times, but a shutdown would be unprecedented, and its ramifications are unclear. A senior Paterson administration official said that a conference call took place on Thursday “providing guidance” to state agencies on how to prepare in the event that Monday’s vote fails.

“We’re not going to let prisoners out of prison, but it’s certainly going to be an urgent situation when police, firefighters, emergency services workers are not going to be able to perform their jobs,” Paterson told reporters Friday. “We don’t have the resources to afford the gasoline that goes in the cars that they drive, the public vehicles.”

“This is a formidable situation of unimaginable consequences,” he said.