ALBANY — Budget negotiations continued at the state Capitol this week, and Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul now wants to use the deal to pass a statewide mask ban.

This week, Hochul told reporters that she is concerned about face coverings and their connections to crime, particularly in New York City.

“Someone assaults someone on the subway, they can get away with it, despite the fact that we have cameras, because they are masked,” she said. “This is something, as I’m protecting public safety, very much top of mind.”

It’s not clear what specific measures the governor would try to implement; there is a mask-ban bill on record in the legislature, supported by downstate Sen. James Skoufis, D-Cornwall, and Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, D-Bronx, which would establish the crime of “masked harassment,” and give it the same penalties as aggravated harassment convictions.

That bill lays out a number of exemptions, like religious or medical face coverings or masks worn for artistic presentations or holidays.

In a conversation with reporters Thursday afternoon, Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie, D-Bronx, said Hochul had brought the topic up in discussions but he had no concrete talking points to discuss and he hasn’t talked with the Assembly majority about it.

“People have concerns with people committing crimes, but we have not as a conference talked about it in a real, I’d say deep sense, so we will over the next two weeks,” Heastie said.

The two main issues that Hochul and the legislative leaders have sparred over are Hochul’s proposals to change the involuntary commitment law and change the discovery rules that dictate when prosecutors have to turn over evidence they’ve collected to defense counsel.

Hochul wants to make it easier to commit people evidently in a mental health crisis to a mental health care facility, and wants to give district attorneys more time to turn over their evidence to defense lawyers. Heastie has said those are the two main issues the legislature and the governor disagree over.

The legislature presented alternative plans for a cellphone ban in K-12 public schools across the state. Hochul is pushing for a “bell-to-bell” plan backed by the teachers union, but groups representing school administrators and school boards have pushed back and called for a less restrictive plan.

The Assembly generally does not put policy proposals in its own budget, and did not include a cellphone-ban plan in its budget documents, but the state Senate proposed a less restrictive plan that would allow some phone use during non-instructional time and would bar districts from suspending students who violate the phone ban.

Both houses of the legislature included plans to raise taxes on wealthy, high-earning state residents, a move they’ve tried year after year with no success. Hochul has stood firm on her position that she doesn’t want to raise taxes for anyone, and reiterated that position this week.

“I’m focused on making sure that we do not drive away the individuals who are basically funding our budget,” Hochul said at a press event in Albany on Tuesday. “We’ve already seen the effects of that, there was an out-migration of high net worth people that began in 2017 when the first elimination of the state and local tax exemption occurred.”

Leaders in Albany have a little over a week to come to a final agreement on the budget ahead of the April 1 deadline. Heastie on Thursday said he didn’t yet know if that deadline would be missed, as it was the last two years.

“I’m hoping to have an on-time budget,” he said. “I’m not ready to say we’re going to over time yet.”