Back in 2012, O’Neill High School Social Studies teacher Jorma Tompuri got an out-of-the-blue email from a young New York State assemblyman named James Skoufis.

“He asked me if I’d like him to come in and talk with my classes, I said yes, and 14 years later … here we are again,” Tompuri told his fourth period SUPA class last week as Skoufis arrived in the school library to talk with them. “Even during the remote COVID days, James stil met with us.”

The topic last week was ‘state government and the budget’. The meeting had been delayed once as Skoufis was at the State Capital working on the state’s $260 billion budget; at press time this week, it was still being worked on.

Skoufis began his conversation with the students by noting that he first served in the State Assembly, but has been in the Senate for the past eight years. A Democrat, he also explained to the students that while New York is perceived as “a very blue state”, “it’s not quite as blue as people think, except when it comes to presidential votes”. He explained that voters are “very willing to cross party lines” and said that he is proud many of his constituents have done so to support him. Currently, he added, the state Senate is made up of 41 Democrats and 22 Republicans.

Skoufis is up for re-election again in November – state senators serve two-year terms.

Back to the budget, he asked the students to guess the approximate amount of the annual state budget – just one student was willing to do so and guessed $4 billion. That would be easier to figure out, he said.

“Our governor has the strongest budget powers of all the states,” he explained, and said that during budget season “a lot of policy is also negotiated”. That’s what is holding the process up again this year, Skoufis added, saying it has been “complicated and contentious in some cases” because of a lot of differing opinions.

In general, the budget is basically divided into three about equal categories of spending – health care and related costs, education and then “everything else”.

He predicted this year’s budget will likely be adopted in May, adding that in recent years it has been as late as June or July. In the budget, Skoufis told the students, his main priority is to try to bring as much money as possible back to his district. “Your families pay a lot of taxes, I’d like to bring some of that money back home”.

Once that is done, he said, is when he’ll be able to spend more time back in the Hudson Valley. During those months he spends his time doing things like speaking to students and groups like senior citizen groups; visiting the many fairs and festivals so he can engage with his constituents; helping to solve local problems and issues; and distributing the grants and other fundings he’s been able to secure for his communities. Skoufis has a 12-person staff to help with all of that, with most of them based at his Cornwall office.

This year, because it is an election year, he’ll also be working on campaigning. He told the students that while he enjoys the “classically American” door-to-door aspect of campaigning – meeting those who do, and don’t, vote for him – he does not enjoy the fundraising aspect of it all. “I want to hear from people what they are going to expect from me if I receive their vote,” he said.

The senator opened up the floor for questions – he was asked pretty quickly if he had any plans to run for higher office.

“I don’t know what my future might hold,” he said, “but I can say I have no plans to run for governor right now. I used to think I wanted to be in Congress, but now I kind of shudder at that idea. It’s dysfunctional – a completely broken system. God bless anyone who wants to try to go in and fix it.”

Other questions ranged from Skoufis’ work to try to eliminate huge mark-ups on concert and sporting event tickets by resellers; the state’s ban on cell phones (“I know it’s been a hard policy for many students, but we all signed off on it,” the senator said. “My position is that a lot of studies very clearly demonstrate that a lot of students do spend too much time on their phones”.); and the condition of the state’s roads (they should, the student said, be funded at the same level as education; Skoufis didn’t disagree, calling some local roads “deplorable”.).

Tompuri thanked Skoufis for stopping by, and told his students that he, a registered Republican, would vote for Skoufis if he could. “James is common sense,” the teacher said. “He does the right thing for people.”