NYS Budget Update

Last week, the Assembly and Senate majorities released and passed their amendments to the Governor’s proposed 2014-15 State Budget. We are pleased to see a number of our concerns addressed by both the Assembly and the Senate, but at the same time, we are very concerned that neither house rejected the Governor’s proposal on nursing home standard wage and the Assembly has added patient handling mandates to the budget discussion. 

While we support measures to ensure safe patient handling, the mandates in the bill are costly, redundant and do not provide adequate patient protections. LeadingAge New York feels strongly that patient handling legislation should be considered outside of the state budget and will continue our advocacy in that regard.

Since the passage of the one-house budget priorities, the Legislature has convened the Joint Budget Conference Committees, beginning with the General Conference Committee and followed by the Subcommittees. We will keep you updated as the budget negotiations unfold. In the meantime, click here for a list of the Assembly’s budget priorities and here for the Senate budget priorities of concern to LeadingAge NY members.

We encourage you to continue your advocacy on these issues as the Legislature begins intense negotiations over the next two weeks. All the resources you need are available on our Legislative Action Center. Please reach out to the legislators that have been appointed to the Joint Budget Conference Committees - you can find this information here. If you see your legislators name on this list, please contact them today and ensure they understand our budget priorities. LeadingAge NY is strongly advocating with these legislators regularly, but nothing is more effective than legislators hearing from their constituents. Please help us send a strong message to them!

Contact: Ami Schnauber, aschnauber@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8854 or Alyssa Lovelace, alovelace@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8844