Legislative Bulletin: State Reaches Budget Agreement for Fiscal Year 2024-25

April 19, 2024

State Reaches Final Budget Agreement for Fiscal Year 2024-25

After three weeks of prolonged budget negotiations beyond the April 1 deadline, the State has reached a final budget agreement for State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2024-25. The Legislature began to print, debate and pass pieces of the final budget legislation yesterday, and this morning, the Health and Mental Hygiene (HMH) Article VII budget bill was printed and became available.

This morning, LeadingAge New York issued an initial summary of the final HMH budget, and the measures that are most relevant to our membership and our priorities. The summary was published prior to the release of relevant appropriation bills and the Education, Labor and Family Assistance budget bill (ELFA), so it is possible the remaining budget bills will include late-breaking additions of interest to our members. LeadingAge New York will be working over the next week to gather more information and analyze all pieces of the final budget legislation. Members can expect to see a comprehensive SFY 2024-25 Final Budget Memo, covering all member service lines and more, within a week after the passage of the Final Budget.

LeadingAge New York expects all budget legislation to be printed by the end of the day today, and all bills to be passed by the end of this weekend. Following the budget’s approval, the Legislature will return to their districts for the spring legislative recess scheduled from now until May 6^th.

We deeply appreciate all the advocacy our members have done this year to protect against massive cuts and fight for better funding. Your advocacy was robust, creative, and impressive all-around. The Executive Budget started this budget process off from a difficult place with a proposed $400 million in unspecified Medicaid cuts, $200 million of which were targeted at long term care. Thanks to your advocacy, were successful in getting those cuts restored and securing some much-needed increases to provider Medicaid rates.

As we analyze the final budget bills in their entirety, we will have a more complete picture of expected impacts on membership. For our nursing home members in particular, the investments thus far are not what we had hoped for. But, it is important to recognize that your efforts made it possible for us to secure the support of the Legislature and result in a more positive outcome. THANK YOU!

Preparing for the Remainder of 2024 Legislative Session

As this year's budget work nears its conclusion, our work for the 2024 Legislative Session is far from over. State legislators will be on recess for the next two weeks, but session will resume on May 6^th and is scheduled to conclude on June 6^th. During the last month of session, legislators will be taking up their remaining legislative priorities and attempting to address issues that are not included in the final budget agreement.

With many long term care-related issues still front-of-mind for lawmakers, and with some of LeadingAge New York's own policy priorities remaining unaddressed, it is certain that we will need your continued advocacy throughout the remainder of this session.

Below are digital advocacy campaigns for some of the top legislative issues that LeadingAge NY will be working on over the next several weeks, and there will be more to come! Each link will bring you to a webpage where you can learn about the issue, read our legislative memo, and enter your information to send an email to legislators and the governor. While we are not mobilizing our members to take action in a robust manner at this moment, we encourage our membership to get re-acquainted with some of the below-listed issues that are likely to arise over the coming weeks.

In addition to engaging in advocacy action alerts, it is important that members maintain connection with legislative offices. When connecting with legislators over the remainder of session, thank them for the funding that is being provided in this year’s budget for long term care and aging services – but also express your persistent workforce and financing challenges. Say that you are grateful for the support and attention to long term care that has come this year, but explain that the sector still needs significant resources and support to make up for over a decade of under-funding.

We encourage members to maintain dialogue and relationships with legislators year-round. Your lawmakers want to be helpful to you! And we need allies and supporters in Albany to help us improve the system that serves older adults and people with disabilities.

Thank you in advance for sticking with us for the remainder of the 2024 Legislative Session! We will keep you apprised of the latest advocacy action items via these Friday Legislative Bulletins and other more urgent updates as needed.

Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Increase Legislation Advances to Senate Finance

This week, a bill that LeadingAge NY supports, A.9807 (Davila)/S.8767 (Persaud), advanced out of Senate Social Services Committee and was referred to the Senate Finance Committee. The legislation would increase the SSI enhanced residential care monthly rate by 10% or approximately five dollars per day. LeadingAge NY memo of support on the bill is available here.

LeadingAge New York strongly supports this legislation, as it is an important first step in improving the inadequate adult care facility (ACF) reimbursement rate. However, further increases and an annual cost of living adjustment must also be built in to approach the cost of providing care in an ACF and to fulfill the State’s Constitutional requirement to aid, care for and support the needy. If the State fails to adequately address this issue, ACFs that serve low-income seniors will continue to close.

When low-income seniors cannot access ACFs in their communities, they often go to nursing homes at a significantly higher cost to the State. Providing adequate rate increases would benefit low-income ACF residents while simultaneously offering the State Medicaid savings.

LeadingAge New York will continue to keep members apprised of any movement of this bill, and of ways you can lend your voice in support of more adequate ACF reimbursement!

2024 National Lobby Day Re-Cap & Action Items

On Wednesday April 17^th, LeadingAge National held its in-person coordinated lobby day effort in Washington, D.C. As part of the national effort, LeadingAge New York and a group of NY member professionals and advocates met with eight U.S. Senate and Congressional offices in just one day! Key issues covered in the meetings were the lack of adequate funding, access to care issues, the need to expand training and pipelines for long-term care workforce, staffing mandates, and the CNA training lockout.

Great discussions were had, and connections made, during Wednesday’s lobby day, and our efforts will help inform and support LeadingAge National’s year-round advocacy on our behalf. Check out these photos from our day on Capitol Hill!

If you were not able to attend the leadership summit and lobby day this year, we hope you’ll consider joining us next year! In addition, you can easily take action on several of the issues mentioned above via LeadingAge National’s advocacy action alert website. You can also learn more about the issues that LeadingAge National is advocating on by reviewing the 2024 Lobby Day materials.

Thank you again to the LeadingAge New York members and allies that committed their day to advocating with us on Capitol Hill! Your work and stories are inspiring, and will help drive the change and funding actions we hope to see in Washington, D.C.!

Contact: Sarah Daly; 518.867.8845; sdaly@leadingageny.org