Star-Gazette from Elmira, New York • 3

REGION Star-Gazette, Friday, April 2, 1993 5A Final N.Y. budget approval still days away By JAY GALLAGHER and BILLY HOUSE Gannett News Service ALBANY Despite a tentative agreement announced on a new state budget Thursday, final passage of the $59 billion-plus spending plan is still days away, with details about education and Medicaid cuts yet to be worked out, lawmakers said Thursday. Senate Majority Leader Ralph Marino "keeps telling us there's an agreement. But as we're being briefed on every issue, there's no agreement," said Sen. Nicholas Spano, R-Yonkers, emerging from a private briefing for Republicans senators being given by Marino.

The Assembly, which adjourned after a brief session Thursday, won't convene today but will work through the weekend to try to get the budget bills passed, said Assembly Majority Leader James Tallon, D-Bingham-ton. The spending plan was supposed to be in place before Thursday, But it's late for the ninth straight year. Gov. Mario Cuomo and the legislative leaders have provided few details of their agreement. But they have said it will include hiking the cigarette tax by 17 cents to 56 cents a pack, increasing school aid by about $250 million and softening the impact of some proposed cuts in Medicaid services, including the 120-hour-a-month limit for home care.

The budget deal also includes spending $350,000 to fight base closings planned by the Pentagon in Rome and on Staten Is land, but no Keno game, which Cuomo proposed in January. Also included is about $300 million for four percent raises for state employees that takes effect Thursday and $7.2 million to pay for raises for judges, their first increases since 1987. There's also money for the first year of a four-year, $20 billion transportation plan, to be funded partly with borrowed money. The plan will preserve the $1.25 subway and bus fare in New York City through next year. The extra spending, lower- than-proposed cigarette tax and money lost by canning the Keno game will be made up with between $700 million and $900 million extra tax revenue the state expects to take in this year because economic forecasts have brightened.

Aid to local schools looms as one of the biggest obstacles to budget adoption. When asked if there was an agreement on school aid, Marino spokesman John McArdle said "sort of. We have to iron out some loose ends," he said. The fight over how to divide the money usually pits lawmakers from New York City, upstate cities and poor rural upstate areas against legislators from Long Island, Westchester and Rockland counties and other suburban areas. Those hailing from the suburbs don't want any money taken away from them and shipped to poorer areas.

Cuomo has said no district will get less money this year than last year, but that some poorer districts will get more. Bill would guard against bad fuel The Associated Press 7'2ti i V. levels randomly or after complaints. To deter competing stations or distributors from falsely accusing one another, if a test proves negative the accuser would have to pay for the procedure. Each test would cost about $100, but Surra said he did not know how much his testing program would cost the state.

The lawmaker introduced a similar bill last year that called for comprehensive state testing, but it failed. Station owners or gasoline distributors who mislabel gasoline would be fined up to $10,000 depending on the number of offenses. Offenders' names and addresses also would be publicized. Attorney General Ernie Preate Jr. has pushed for an octane-testing law since 1990.

He said a 1990 study by the Pennsylvania Association of Weights and Measures found that 17 percent of the gas they sampled at 40 stations was mislabeled. A federal study found that states that do not test fuel have a much higher rate of mislabeling. In the late 1980s, Missouri showed mislabeling at 52 percent and Tennessee at 22 percent. Those states now have testing programs. William Strauss, owner of a station near Harrisburg, said he would support the legislation as long as owners not responsible for mislabeling were not punished.

"I am relying on the honesty and integrity of the company that gave us the product," said Strauss, a legislative chairman for Service Station Dealers of Pennsylvania and Delaware. HARRISBURG The state would randomly check gasoline stations to protect motorists against bad or mislabeled fuel under legislation announced Thursday at the Capitol. State Rep. Dan Surra, D-Elk, a former stock car racer, said Pennsylvania is one of only six states without gasoline standards. And Pennsylvania is one of 22 states that does not check octane levels, he said.

Many consumers buy bad gasoline that damages their engines, and motorists often pay for premium gas but really get lower-grade fuel, Surra said. Surra's legislation would require the state Department of Agriculture's division of weights and measures to test gas octane v. vTr- V' I (' -f it iV i 1 i i III Auto Loans The Associated Press SHOOTING SUSPECTS: Carlos Lorenzo Harris, front right, and Richard Albert Gianzero, behind Harris, are led from Allegany town court after being charged with second-degree attempted murder. The duo allegedly shot two Alfred State College students Sunday night after the students stopped to help stranded motorists. Shootings make community wary about stranded motorists i i I i New Used 7.75 ff 8.50 APR I APR 1 Check out our extended payment plans for low monthly payments ping on highways.

Police have been advising motorists that if they see someone stranded, go to a phone and report it instead of stopping to help. "Pretty girl or not pretty girl, you've just got to watch yourself, and don't stop to pick up hitchhikers," said Allegany Police Sgt. Dominic Papasergi. Minutes before the shooting, Heidi Bailey and Doug Gunso-lus of Olean and their 14-month-old son drove past the teen-agers. One suspect was in the road waving for them to stop, but Bailey and Gunsolus said they do not pick up hitchhikers.

"If we had stopped, it might have been us who got shot," Bailey said. The suspects had stolen a car and the gun from one of their parents near Denver, on March 22 and were driving to New York City, police said. They have been implicated in robberies in other states. The Associated Press ALLEGANY, N.Y. It's any motorist's nightmare, but it became true this week for two college students who stopped to help people on the roadside, then were beaten, shot and left for dead.

Because of the incident, people around the friendly, rural community where it happened say they'll be far less neighborly about helping stranded motorists from now on. "I probably would have stopped myself for these people," said Becky McLaughlin of nearby Bradford, Pa. "Now? Never. I wouldn't stop." John Goldberg, 20, of North Clymer and Scott McKinney, 18, of Spencerport were heading back to school at Alfred State College of Technology Sunday night when they stopped to help two 15-year-old women who flagged them down on State Route 17 in Allegany, 70 miles southeast of Buffalo. When they got out of their pickup truck, Goldberg and McKinney were jumped by two men ages 16 and 17, police said.

The suspects beat them with a baseball bat then shot them repeatedly with a pistol, police said. The four teen-agers drove off in the truck, leaving Goldberg and McKinney lying along the road, police said. Police caught the suspects at a roadblock 30 miles east. They have been charged as adults with attempted murder. Goldberg and McKinney re-mained in intensive care Thursday at Olean General Hospital.

They are expected to recover. "They're the type of people who help old ladies across the street," said Jeff Granger, residence hall coordinator at Alfred college, where Goldberg and McKinney are roommates. College officials have used the shootings to point out to students the dangers of stop New 7.75 APR for 60 Months Used 8.50 APR for 48 Months Monthly Monthly Amount Payment Total Loan Amount Payment Total Loan $8,000 $161.25 $9,675.00 $4,000 $98.59 $4,732.32 10,000 201.56 12,093.60 5,500 135.56 6,506.88 12,000 241.88 14,512.80 7,000 172.53 8,281.44 15 Downpayment Required Lifc and accidentfiealth insurance available at slight additional cost And if you are a Liberty Club customer you'll get an extra 25 off our already low rate! Collision Insurance Mty Be Required Chemung Canal Trust Company .1 I 13 Member FDIC Student charged in death of Colgate football player The Associated Press Friday Saturday only! 3 fffi Girls' springtime dresso McCurdy's Kids Department is your Spring Shopping Headquarters for little girls' dresses. This is one beautiful assortment! Knits, prints and smocked dresses from Infants' sizes to Girls' 14. All at 35 savings! 'Excludes Communion and Christening dresses.

Girls' Department, at all stores. (028, 027, 710, 040) Register to win friend's house, said Pylman. Although investigators have not established a motive, Pylman said it appeared the stabbing was "a spontaneous act that occurred when things got out of hand" during a fight. The victim and Galati knew each other but investigators were still checking on the extent of their'relationship, he said. "It was an uneventful party.

They were leaving and an altercation broke out. It was mostly pushing and shoving. Then some things were said, and Mr. Galati took on a role considerably more serious," Pylman said. The fight occurred about 1:05 a.m.

on a lawn outside the privately owned Campus Hill Apart-ments following a party, Simpson said. The brawl had ended by the time police arrived, Simpson said. MORRISVILLE, N.Y. A 19-year-old State University of New York student was arrested Thursday and charged with the stabbing death of a Colgate football player during an off-campus brawl. Brian J.

Galati, of Deer Park, N.Y., was charged with second-degree murder in the death of Kyndle Mongeon, 20, of St. Albans, said state police Maj. C. Allen Pylman. Mongeon, a junior offensive tackle for Colgate University, was stabbed in the lower back during the fight between several Colgate and State University of New York at Morrisville students, said Trooper Jim Simpson, a state police spokesman.

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"Privacy is the chief casualty in the war on drugs, and the New Castle schools have taken that war too far," said Witold Walczak, director of the Pittsburgh chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. The boys are seeking an unspecified cash award from a jury and an end to the strip searches. PITTSBURGH Educators humiliated six teen-agers by forcing them to lift their shirts and drop their pants before frisking them in a fruitless search for illegal drugs, the boys alleged Thursday. The seventh- and eighth-grade students at Ben Franklin Junior High School sued the New Castle School District, the New Castle.