ALBANY — Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, D-Bronx, has introduced a bill that would take away some of the governor’s leverage in state budget talks, by restarting legislators’ paychecks if the executive asks for non-fiscal things in negotiations over the state spending plan.

First reported by Gothamist Tuesday afternoon, Heastie introduced the bill in the Assembly Wednesday morning. There is no companion bill in the Senate.

Under current law, legislators do not get paid if they fail to pass a state spending plan by the April 1 deadline set in law. If passed, Heastie’s bill would restart their paychecks only if Gov. Kathy Hochul submits bills for consideration that include language not pertaining to financial issues.

The pause in pay is seen as an advantage for the governor, whose pay is not paused, by forcing lawmakers to weigh the value of pushing back in negotiations against their own incomes.

Lawmakers’ checks are still printed but not distributed, and handed to legislators the night the budget passes and becomes law.

The governor has proven willing to take negotiations past the deadline, even introducing new requests as the talks drag on. Since April 1, Hochul has asked for the budget package to include a change to the hiring age for corrections officers, expanded good-behavior time credits for incarcerated people, and a change to electoral law to link the governor and lieutenant governor in the primaries.

“I’m very successful in overtime,” Hochul told reporters last week, pointing to the issues she’s successfully negotiated in the last three years, all done after the April 1 deadline.

That has evidently irked the legislative leaders, especially Heastie, who maintains that policy debates should not be packaged into the state spending plan.

“No policy in the budget,” Heastie often repeats when asked about issues in the spending plan.

Hochul’s office reacted to the new bill negatively. Avi Small, spokesperson for the governor, said in a statement that the governor is holding the line on her positions.

“The policy priorities Governor Hochul announced back in January — holding violent criminals accountable, cutting middle-class taxes, tackling the mental health crisis and bell-to-bell distraction free schools, all while providing record school aid and Medicaid funds — have the overwhelming support of New Yorkers,” he said. “If the highest-paid state legislators in America are worried about their paychecks, there’s a much easier solution: come to the table and pass a budget that includes Governor Hochul’s common-sense agenda.”

It’s not evident that the legislature is ready to do that. Officials confirmed Wednesday that the leaders haven’t met in person since Saturday, although lower-level staff continue discussions.

Hochul’s budget director, Blake Washington, told reporters later Wednesday that talks are ongoing and that the governor was going to advance an extender bill on Thursday to fund the government to Tuesday of next week.

He said that Hochul’s decision to add in more policy to the budget after its due date was not a negotiating tactic, a position that seems to fly in the face of the governor’s own comments two weeks ago, when she said she had introduced language to implement a criminal mask ban at this point in negotiations deliberately.

Washington left the door open for more policy proposals from the governor.

“I never say never, I’m sure we’ll hear more from the legislature as well. It remains to be seen but nothing comes to mind right now,” he said.