After New York State leaders reached a deal on a new $175 billion budget, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo praised it as “the best budget” of his tenure. The Assembly speaker, Carl E. Heastie, called elements of it “critical” and “historic.”
Yet on Monday, as the Legislature finished approving the budget, some progressive lawmakers were furious.
Several assembly members who voted for the budget bill listed what they saw as failures and said that there was “not a lot we should smile about.” A senator wrote on Twitter that she had cried as the votes were being counted.
Many spoke on the floor against the revenue portion of the budget, which contained the bulk of the policy; 17 Democrats in the Assembly voted against it — a number unseen in the past eight years of Mr. Cuomo’s tenure.
“Talking to some of my colleagues, the sentiment was that not much has changed” from when Republicans controlled the Senate, said Assemblywoman Catalina Cruz of Queens, a Democrat.
The vigor and volume of the disappointment spoke to a persistent — and some say growing — schism in the ranks of Albany’s newly empowered Democrats, who swept into a legislative monopoly in November by winning eight seats and retaking the State Senate.
Many recently elected lawmakers had hoped that New York could become a testing ground for progressive ideas. But the budget process showed a distance remained between the party’s emboldened left wing, and the older guard, centrist lawmakers who seemed skittish by the pace of change.
In response, progressive activists have begun mulling primary challenges to certain Assembly members. Some lawmakers said they had surprised their leaders by voting against the bill.
