“The enacted budget is a huge, missed opportunity to address the core issues New Yorkers care about most, and it comes up short more often than it hits the mark. The fundamental job of lawmakers is to create policy that makes New York a safe and affordable place to live. This budget once again gets a failing grade.

Prolonged negotiations conducted by three people in secret held up a budget vote for weeks. Presumably, the delay was meant to ensure meaningful changes to bail reform, but the final product came up woefully short and amounted to little more than window dressing. No substantive changes were made on bail-eligible offenses and judges will still not legally be allowed to consider the dangerousness of an offender or their offense.

This budget is also laden with added tax and cost burdens to New Yorkers. The state claw-back of enhanced Federal Medicaid Assistance Percentage aid intended to go to county governments to offset expanding Medicaid costs will require property tax increases to cover the loss. Arguments by Majority leaders that counties have been taking in higher sales tax revenue and don’t need these funds are insulting and disingenuous. This is a blatant money grab, and the taxpayer suffers.

The failure of the state to properly manage critical Medicaid resources is also evident by the woefully inadequate reimbursement rate for our struggling nursing homes statewide. Without a rate of inflation increase in 15 years, record inflation, more mandates and a more than 40% increase in costs, a minimum increase of 20% was necessary. Sadly, those who provide care to our seniors weren’t even met with half that. This means continued operating losses, inability to pay competitive wages and worst of all: more beds going offline. Seniors and their families will continue to struggle to find quality care and the cost of that care will only be higher the longer this issue goes unresolved.

While I applaud the commitment of more resources for clean water infrastructure upgrades, I am dismayed to see technical barriers preventing many small communities and sewer districts from accessing them left unaddressed. This effectively results in unjust and unfunded tax mandates on communities least able to bear them.

Our environment and natural resources, especially here in the North Country, are our greatest asset and we should continue working to become better stewards of them. However, we must do so in a manner that allows hard-working families to be willing participants in this process, and not force them to do so with unilateral, inappropriate mandates. Unilateral energy policy will undermine other goals and priorities of New York residents through unintended consequences that lead to increased energy and construction costs, grid instability and overall unaffordability with increasingly strained household budgets. 

Residents needed a budget that would make New York more affordable and safer. What this budget does is increase the costs to live in New York, make families more dependent on the state to make that possible and fail to address their sense of safety.”