The heart of the majority writing is that substantial deference is owed to the executive and legislative branches of government, particularly in matters of budgeting and policymaking (see majority op at 28-30). I agree wholeheartedly. When the Executive and the Legislature have acted together on matters within their particular province, the courts should indeed tread lightly. That, however, is not what happened here. There is no state budget plan for bringing the schools into constitutional compliance; that is precisely the problem. When, as here, the Executive and the Legislature are specifically at odds as to the cost of providing the opportunity for a sound basic education to New York City schoolchildren, the approach of a single branch, rejected by another, cannot legitimately be considered "the State's estimate" (majority op at 29), and is entitled to no special weight. In CFE II we directed defendants to ascertain the actual cost of providing a sound basic education in New York City; to ensure that every city school have the resources necessary to provide the opportunity for a sound basic education; and to ensure a system of accountability to measure whether the reforms actually provide the opportunity for a sound basic education. Although there is no dispute that defendants failed to comply with our second directive, I cannot agree with the majority that they complied with our first. To be sure, the Governor, in undertaking to determine the cost of a sound basic education, and in proposing $4.7 billion in increased annual funding for the New York City public schools, took important steps toward that objective. And in most cases, of course, we can assume that the Governor, in whom the executive{**8 NY3d at 35} power is vested, speaks for the State. But not so here. The enactment of an appropriation bill that ensures adequate educational funding [*14]requires agreement among the Governor and both houses of the Legislature, and plainly that has not occurred.[FN2] As the deadline for compliance approached, defendants advised the trial court, to which we had remitted the case, of the actions they had by then undertaken to satisfy this Court's order. Based on defendants' failure to fulfill the CFE II mandate, the court appointed three referees "to hear and report with recommendations on what measures defendants have taken to follow the [CFE II] directives and bring this State's school funding mechanism into constitutional compliance insofar as it affects the New York City School System. The referees shall also identify the areas, if any, in which such compliance is lacking." Even today, it is hard to see what alternative the court had. The Executive and Legislature were at loggerheadsthere was no agreed amount to be implemented. The majority faults the trial court and referees for undertaking to determine the actual cost of a sound basic education, believing instead that calculations proffered by certain of the defendants should have been beyond question. For more than 200 years, however, it has been the province and duty of the judicial branch to enforce compliance with constitutional norms, including (when necessary) as against the other branches of government. Defendants' continued failure to