“I’m happy to finally be back in Albany to give the people of the 112^th District a voice. While my staff and I continue to help constituents from home, it’s good to be back working on legislation that will help New Yorkers to navigate through this pandemic and the aftermath that lies ahead.

“I commend the Legislature for adopting some comprehensive measures that address a wide variety of issues impacting our state. Many of these deal with increasing flexibility for county governments, schools and local entities that should have local control and protections in place during these difficult times. I was especially happy to support legislation that ensures school districts continue to receive State School Aid despite not meeting the required 180 days in session due to the COVID-19 pandemic (A.10189-A). We also passed a bill that prohibits price gouging for medical equipment (A.10270) and another which provides $10,000 to small businesses and not-for-profit corporations to purchase personal protective equipment (PPE).

“During our proceedings, the Minority Conference intended to introduce an amendment to reduce the governor’s executive power, but unfortunately it was blocked by the Majority. While there was a need to act quickly at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the governor has gone too far with the actions he has taken under his current authority. He has issued more than 30 Executive Orders and has changed over 260 laws – unilaterally. In my opinion, not all his actions have been related to COVID-19 or the current crisis. It is critical that the governor is not the sole decision maker for the entire state, and the Legislature has the ability to enforce checks and balances to ensure all New Yorkers are being represented.

“We may have taken several steps forward, but we merely scratched the surface for New Yorkers. Unfortunately, in this package of more than two dozen bills, there was little support for small businesses, upstate farms, landlords, nursing homes, schools and local governments that are struggling to budget without knowing how deeply the governor may cut essential parts of their budgets, including AIM funding, CHIPS Funding or Foundation Aid. Additionally, the only bill pertaining to Unemployment Insurance effectively rewards people who intentionally lie or misrepresent themselves on the application for benefits – not the thousands of outstanding legitimate claims. We also failed to adopt solutions for many other resounding issues, including graduation ceremonies and churches and religious organizations that are desperately looking to re-open.”