Today's thunder and lightning may just be place-setters for the budget battle gearing up in Albany. Governor David Paterson is expected to testify this morning before the House Ways and Means Committee, in no small part on the looming $12.5 billion state budget gap, The new, revised estimate is nearly double the $6.45 billion Paterson's administration projected this past August. And don't for a New York minute think schools will be immune: "Everything is on the table," Paterson said yesterday in Buffalo. "Everyone has to be accountable. Everyone has to sacrifice."

Lawmakers return to Albany in three weeks to slice and dice $2 billion in cuts to the current budget, to narrow the current deficit. For the city and its schools, grim economic times won't lift with today's harbinger-of-winter storm.