Legislative Bulletin: Legislature Completes SFY 2021-22 Budget Work
April 8, 2021
Legislature Completes SFY 2021-22 Budget Work
Late last night, the Assembly passed the last four remaining budget bills, completing the Legislature’s budget work for the SFY 2021-22 budget cycle. This morning, all budget bills were delivered to the Governor, requiring his signature by Monday, April 19th.
After a busy few weeks of budget work and many “action alerts”, we are pleased to report that your advocacy efforts have been successful in achieving the restoration of proposed cuts in funding and avoiding the harsh punitive measures proposed in the Governor’s budget. In addition, the final budget appears to include over $1.6 billion for home and community-based services and over $64 million in new state share Medicaid funding for nursing homes.
Although we had still been awaiting the printing of a few outstanding budget bills at the time, LeadingAge NY issued an initial analysis of the final budget in Tuesday’s Intelligence. The budget update included key highlights that had been addressed in the Health and Medicaid (HMH), the Education, Labor, Housing and Family Assistance (ELFA) and the Capital Projects budget bills. Now that all bills have been printed and passed by both houses, LeadingAge NY policy staff are analyzing the entire budget and will be pulling together a comprehensive SFY 2021-22 budget memo to be shared with members no later than Friday, April 16th.
While awaiting our comprehensive memo, members are welcome to review Hinman Straub’s Final Health & Medicaid Budget Overview as well as this supplemental document for additional details of what was included in the final budget.
Overall, we are pleased with the outcome of this particularly challenging budget cycle. We thank all LeadingAge NY members for your diligent and consistent advocacy! Our successes in this final budget would not have been possible without your advocacy. Thank you!
State Lawmakers Return to the District for April Recess
Now that the Legislature has completed their budget work, lawmakers are returning to the district for an April recess. Both the Senate and Assembly have adjourned and are planning to return to their legislative work on Monday, April 19th. During this recess, legislators will be preparing for the remainder of session, assessing their remaining policy priorities and potentially introducing new legislation.
During this time in the district, members are encouraged to call their legislator’s district offices and thank them for their work in restoring harmful cuts to long-term care and providing additional funding to nursing homes and home and community-based services. Meanwhile, LeadingAge NY will be reviewing our remaining policy priorities for the next few months of this 2021 legislative session. In next week’s Bulletin, we will be sharing an update on some of these pieces of priority legislation along with any affiliated advocacy action items.
Join us for LeadingAge National Lobby Day!
We are just weeks away from the 2021 LeadingAge National Lobby Day Congressional lobby days serve as great opportunities to meet with elected officials and advocate for issues that are important to aging services. Importantly, with new Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer leading the Senate and House Democrats maintaining their majority, New York is well positioned to be particularly influential on the national level.
We strongly encourage LeadingAge NY members to take advantage of our strategic position and join us in engaging with Federal lawmakers! This year, as aging services providers begin the process of rebuilding in a post-crisis world - it is more critical than ever to make our voices heard.
LeadingAge’s Congressional Lobby Day is scheduled for April 21, 2021 and registration is still open!
We have some great New York meetings scheduled for the lobby day, including a meeting with Leader Schumer’s office. LeadingAge National has organized a “Know Before You Go” Lobby Day training on Wednesday, April 14th at 3 PM to help members prepare for their meetings. Following the training, National will be sharing a webpage with talking points, meeting materials and provider specific “asks”.
Additionally, LeadingAge New York will be hosting our own Lobby Day Planning Call on Tuesday, April 20th at 11 AM. This call will be used to plan out the flow of our meeting with Leader Schumer, dictate which LeadingAge NY staff will be joining each of the meetings, and answer any other questions members may have. Zoom meeting information for this planning call will be sent directly to members registered for National’s Lobby Day. Click here to register today!
Governor Signs Immunity Repeal Legislation
On Tuesday night, Governor Cuomo signed A.3397 (Kim)/S.5177 (Biaggi), repealing the Emergency or Disaster Treatment Protection Act, effective immediately. The Act protected health care facilities, including hospitals and nursing homes, and their employees from COVID-19 related lawsuits. LeadingAge NY has strongly opposed this bill since its introduction in the summer of 2020 and is disappointed to see the bill signed by the governor, despite our best efforts. The topic of liability for care provided during the pandemic has been a recurring issue at the front of mind for many lawmakers, and unfortunately, they were ultimately successful in getting this bill passed and signed.
Urge Congress to Invest in Affordable Senior Housing!
As we reported last week, President Biden has introduced his $2 trillion “American Jobs Plan” which would substantially increase funding for affordable housing and home and community-based services (HCBS). The infrastructure plan calls attention to the severe shortage of affordable housing options in America, and calls for $213 billion to “build, preserve, and retrofit more than two million homes and commercial buildings” through the following approaches:
- Produce, preserve, and retrofit more than a million affordable, resilient, accessible, energy efficient, and electrified housing units
- Build and rehabilitate more than 500,000 homes for low- and middle-income homebuyers
- Eliminate exclusionary zoning and harmful land use policies
- Address longstanding public housing capital needs
- Put workers back to work upgrading homes and businesses
It is difficult to say exactly how this proposal will play out in negotiations, however, the President’s proposal provides the perfect opportunity for us to make sure New York Congressional representatives understand the critical need for increased investment in affordable senior housing!
LeadingAge NY has created this new Federal Issue Brief on Affordable Housing, highlighting our asks for HUD funding, capital investments and related items such as internet access and age-friendly retrofits. Members are encouraged to contact their members of Congress, relay these requests and explain how your region and the seniors that live there would benefit from proper investment in affordable senior housing.
LeadingAge & LeadingAge NY Coronavirus Resources
LeadingAge NY continues to closely follow all COVID-19 news and we are doing our best to keep members informed of updates, recommendations and guidelines from the Department of Health (DOH).
LeadingAge NY and LeadingAge National Member resources are linked below.
LeadingAge NY Coronavirus Resources
LeadingAge NY COVID-19 Weekly Update calls – Mondays at 11 a.m. Click here to join the call from your computer, android or apple device. Or you can join the call by dialing in: 877 853 5257 (Toll Free); Webinar ID: 852 964 255.
LeadingAge National Coronavirus Resources Page
LeadingAge National Pandemic Playbook
COVID-19 Group in the MyLeadingAge Member Community
Coronavirus Daily Member Update calls – Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 3:30-4:30 p.m. Past call recordings are available here and you can register here for future calls.
Contact: Ami Schnauber; 518.867.8854; aschnauber@leadingageny.org
Sarah Daly; 518.867.8845; sdaly@leadingageny.org