Updates on Pending NYS Budget
From Harvey Rosenthal, CEO and Luke Sikinyi, VP of Public Policy
As budget bills prepare to move forward this week, the Alliance for Rights and Recovery is deeply disappointed to learn that the final agreement will include only a 2.6% rate enhancement for human services agencies and their workforce—far short of the 7.8% enhancement that the Alliance, other advocates, and the Legislature had called for. At a time of growing need and ongoing workforce shortages, this level of investment does not meet the urgency of the moment. Our human services workforce is the backbone of the mental health and substance use support system, and we cannot stabilize or grow services without real support for the people who provide them.
We are also deeply disappointed by the reported inclusion of expanded criteria for involuntary inpatient and outpatient commitment in the final budget deal. These coercive approaches will only deepen the revolving door of hospitalization because it does not provide the bold, sustained investment in the voluntary services that people are asking for. Expanding involuntary treatment instead of fixing the system people are being sent back into is a step in the wrong direction.
Under the new standards, police will be the primary responders tasked with carrying out involuntary removals from the street—a role they are not trained for and one that risks escalating crises. The Alliance and other advocates worked throughout the session to promote alternatives to police in crisis response. As a result of that advocacy and collaboration with the Legislature, the final budget will include language ensuring that EMS personnel will carry out these transports “whenever practicable.” This is a small but important step toward safer, more appropriate responses.
At the same time, we are encouraged to hear that Daniel’s Law-style crisis responder pilots are likely to be included in the final budget. These pilots represent a critical step forward in providing more appropriate responses to mental health and substance use crises with peer- and health-led teams that prioritize support, not control.
While the budget has not yet passed, Alliance staff are continuing to speak with legislators and staff and expect additional details to be finalized in the coming days. We are closely monitoring final language and funding levels for:
- Incident Review Panels to examine system failures and recommend improvements.
- The number of Daniel’s Law pilots funded and related investments in non-police crisis response.
- Discharge planning improvements to support recovery after hospitalization.
- Strengthening the core of New York’s community mental health continuum, including:
- INSET (Intensive and Sustained Engagement Teams)
- Peer Bridger programs in community hospitals
- Clubhouse expansion outside of New York City
- Outreach teams to support people on the streets and elsewhere
- Additional ACT teams
- More Supportive Housing and Housing First Programs
We are also tracking the final use of the $16.5 million initially earmarked for Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) programs and continue to urge that these funds be directed exclusively to voluntary, community-based services.
The Alliance will remain fully engaged until the budget is passed—and beyond—pushing to ensure that all investments promote access, dignity, and recovery, not coercion. We thank our members and partners for standing with us during this critical time. Stay tuned for more updates tomorrow as budget bills are released.
Budget Deal Nears—For Real This Time
By Bill Mahoney | Politico | May 5, 2025
THE END MIGHT BE NIGH: It’s been one week since Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a deal on the state budget — and there’s finally some hope that an actual deal might be imminent.
Democrats in the Senate and Assembly held conference meetings this afternoon. The first budget bills will be sent to the printers soon, allowing for marathon voting sessions to start in the coming days.
“We’re down to just dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s,” said Senate Deputy Leader Mike Gianaris.
“We’re 99.9 percent done,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said. Bills will be printed “at the earliest tomorrow; at the latest Wednesday.”
More details of the final agreement emerged throughout the day. It will include an Assembly-backed plan to have the state pay of $7 billion of unemployment insurance debt for businesses, Hochul confirmed this morning.
The budget is expected to have language to delay the start of an outside income ban on state legislators until 2027 as that subject continues to be litigated. It will also include Hochul’s push to change the way lieutenant governors are elected, following her discord with LG Antonio Delgado.
But New Yorkers still haven’t seen actual details on subjects like these, days before they might become law. Republican Sen. Dean Murray pointed to Hochul’s claim that small businesses will have their burdens lessened by her plan to hike payroll taxes to fund the MTA.
“Many of them aren’t paying it right now,” Murray said. “So how she’s somehow giving them a break, I’m so curious to see these details.”
The lack of transparency isn’t the only way this year’s budget process is similar to those from yesteryear. As POLITICO Pro reported this morning, this year’s budget is now the latest it’s been since former Gov. David Paterson’s 2010 austerity budget. The second- and third-latest came in 2023 and 2024, and there hasn’t been an on-time spending plan since 2019.
The current streak is beginning to call to mind the 20-year stretch of late budgets from 1985 through 2004. Backlash from editorial boards and school districts who had to draft their own budgets before knowing how much state aid they’d be getting — as was the case this year — eventually made on-time budgets a top priority for governors like Andrew Cuomo. Hochul has shrugged off the importance of meeting the March 31 deadline, leading to mounting frustrations from both parties.
“The governor’s the one who has to drive the actual ‘let’s get it done, let’s get it done timely,’” Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt said. “If it was up to the Legislature, we may never have had one budget in the history of the state,” he said, pointing to the challenge of 213 legislators with “parochial interests” coming to a deal by themselves.
Democrats have regularly bemoaned Hochul’s insistence on focusing on policy more than spending during talks on the spending plan.
“The more policy determinations that are included in a budget, the more contentious these budgets will be,” Assemblymember Charles Lavine said. He pointed to issues like involuntary commitment and changes to discovery laws that touch on “core civil liberty [and] due process issues,” saying they “require a lot of discussion and debate in the Legislature before a consensus could be reached.”
Lavine recently became the latest legislator to introduce a constitutional amendment to reverse a series of court cases from the early 2000s that gave governors outsized power over budget talks. Lawmakers last attempted to enact such an amendment in 2005, but voters rejected that after high-dollar campaigns by both sides.
“There’s genuine interest” in revisiting the issue, Lavine said, “but mounting a battle for a constitutional amendment is a daunting process.” — Bill Mahoney
When to Expect State Budget Bills and a Floor Vote This Week
By Dan Clark | Capitol Confidential | May 5, 2025
I feel like if I tell you at this point when lawmakers and other folks at the Capitol are expecting budget bills, I might as well be throwing darts with a blindfold on.
Some of the remaining nine budget bills may begin to be introduced tonight. If we don’t see them overnight, we’ll likely see them sometime Tuesday during the day or Wednesday, Assembly Speaker Carl E. Heastie said.
“At the earliest tomorrow, at the latest Wednesday,” Heastie said when asked when bills would be introduced Monday.
If that prediction holds, we could expect to see lawmakers begin to vote on budget bills as early as Wednesday, but a Thursday start is more realistic. Voting on the budget usually takes about two days.
We did learn a little more from Heastie about specific items expected in the budget.
- Human services: The cost of living adjustment for human services organizations that contract with the state will increase by 2.6%. That’s up from the 2.1% Hochul proposed by much lower than the 7.8% pitched by the Legislature in March.
- Substantial equivalency: The budget will include changes to the standards nonpublic schools, including yeshivas, have to meet to be considered “substantially equivalent” to an education offered by public schools.
- Prison changes: The age to work as a correction officer will be lowered to 18 and more programs will count toward merit time for incarcerated people.
- Spending cuts: Hochul will have the power to make up to $2 billion in cuts to state spending but the Legislature will then have 10 days to reject them.
Heastie said there are still small items that remain open but nothing that he expects to hold up bills from being printed. That’s what I heard elsewhere as well.
“We’re down to the knits and gnats at this point,” said Senate Deputy Majority Leader Michael Gianaris, who unintentionally invented the fun phrase on the spot.
“It means the big ticket items are mostly settled and we’re down to dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s and playing with the actual numbers, which is what the budget is supposed to be about,” Gianaris explained.
Gianaris and the lawmakers I spoke to Monday agreed that they expect to vote on budget bills later this week. That became even more likely after news broke that one of the last major sticking points in the budget had been resolved.