Legislative Bulletin: Preparing for Final Week of State Budget Negotiations

March 21, 2025

Final Week of State Budget Negotiations: Please Continue to Advocate!

New York State is nearing the end of its state budget negotiation cycle, which began with the Executive Budget Proposal in January, and is expected to conclude with a final budget agreement, due April 1, 2025. This means we have only 10 days left to advocate for LeadingAge NY’s top budget priorities to be included in the final budget for State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2025-26.

The time window to advocate on state budget decisions is rapidly closing! It is critical that LeadingAge NY, our members, and our network of advocates continue to push for the investments and restorations you need, and the funding that the people you serve deserve. Please use the below tools to continue to advocate with your state legislators and the governor now!

Please take a moment to click one or more of the below links to send an email to elected officials today! It only takes a few clicks!  

• Nursing Home Budget Letter – additional letters for board members, staff teams, family members, etc. are here.
• Adult Care Facilities/Assisted Living Budget Letter
• Home & Community-Based Services Budget Letter
• Managed Long-Term Care Budget Letter
•  Adult Day Health Care Budget Letter

Engage others in advocacy! Print and share advocacy flyers to increase our digital advocacy reach. Flyers can be printed and left in lobby areas or shared digitally with families and volunteers:

• Family Advocacy Flyer
• Constituent/Volunteer Advocacy Flyer
• ​​​​​​​Workforce Advocacy Flyer

Finally, social media advocacy is a great way to capture the attention of lawmakers and urge them to prioritize the care and service needs of older adults! LeadingAge NY has a state budget social media toolkit, which provides pre-written social media posts, along with graphics and videos created by members, residents and staff. Using imagery and videos on social media to tell our story has proven effective in recent years, but we need our members to help us get our message out there in front of elected officials and the general public!

The social media toolkit makes social media advocacy easy: simply download the image that you wish to use, copy the caption from the toolkit, and create a new post on your personal or professional social media accounts. Just be sure that your post “tags” the elected officials we are trying to focus our advocacy on. You will know the legislator has been tagged when their name lights up in blue.

Thank you to all our members who have advocated with us so far this year! We appreciate any energies you can dedicate toward advocacy during these final days of state budget negotiations. Your advocacy now will make all the difference!

Please reach out to Sarah Daly at sdaly@leadingageny.org with any questions.

 

ACTION ALERT: Please Share Member Video Calling for Better Nursing Home Funding!

One-house budget proposals were released last week, and now, the Governor and the Legislature are in the process of negotiating a final budget agreement for State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2025-26. With less than two weeks remaining of this year’s State budget work, LeadingAge NY urges all members to take your advocacy to social media! 

TAKE ACTION NOW! Please take a moment to share the below social media content to help us amplify the voices of New York’s nursing home residents!

Please SHARE the below video and make sure to TAG the Governor, Legislative Leadership AND your state legislators on Facebook so we can be sure that they see our message.

1. Share this video on Facebook!
   • If you are sharing on your personal profiles, we encourage you to make the post “public”.
2. When you click “Share”, add the below caption, and include the tags (@) of state legislators. When you post the video, please be sure that the names of the legislators turn blue. This indicates that the individual has been tagged in the post and will see it. Please also be sure to include the tags (@) of your state legislators!

New Caption:

Listen to Elaine! She is a nursing home resident, and she is advocating for herself and the over 90,000 other individuals who receive care in NY’s nursing homes every day. Unfortunately, 70% of nursing homes in the State are losing money on operations, and providers are closing as a result.

Elaine is telling NY policymakers, “Medicaid funding should help me, but NY’s reimbursement for nursing homes is the lowest in the country…”

Thank you @Andrea Stewart-Cousins,  @Carl E. Heastie & @Governor Kathy Hochul for proposing necessary Medicaid increases to benefit nursing home residents and staff. With nursing homes facing a $1.6 billion Medicaid funding gap, it is critical that the final budget includes every dollar possible to substantially increase Medicaid funding and restore the 10% capital cut enacted last year. Please #PrioritizeOlderAdults by working to provide a Medicaid rate that matches the cost of care in this year’s budget! #NursingHomeSOS

3. Share this message with your board members, staff, and family members, and ask them to share it on their socials, tagging legislators! This could help expand our advocacy reach and allow legislators to hear from new advocates.

And of course, be sure to check out our social media toolkit to help amplify our unified social media messages, graphics, and other member videos! We are encouraging members to post on social media at least twice next week about the state budget, tagging state legislators to help keep the pressure on.

Thank you for your budget advocacy and for staying engaged with us throughout this process!  

 

 

LeadingAge NY Urges Support for CHHAs in State Budget

LeadingAge New York continues to advocate for Certified Home Health Agencies (CHHA) in the 2025-26 state budget.  Since 2019, the state has seen 18 of its 122 CHHAs close due to financial instability and workforce challenges. LeadingAge New York’s budget request calls for more funding for CHHAs to help address workforce challenges and deliver home health care to underserved areas and populations. While the Governor’s budget did not provide new funding for CHHAs, both one-house budgets included $15M for this purpose.  See our CHHA Budget Brief here.
LeadingAge New York is also advocating for an increase in the CHHA episodic rate to account for inflation, workforce and regulatory changes. Further, we support language that directs the State Department of Health to make the Episodic Payment System (EPS) rates available annually to managed care plans, along with a notice that EPS is the standard Medicaid payment method.

To write your legislators and Governor Hochul in support of funding for home and community-based services, such as CHHAs, click here!

Please reach out to Sarah Daly at sdaly@leadingageny.org or Meg Everett at meverett@leadingageny.org if you have any questions.

 

Congress Passes C.R. to Fund Government Until Sept. 30: Budget Reconciliation Process Still Poses Threats to Medicaid

Facing a midnight deadline to continue to fund the government and avoid a shutdown, the Senate passed a year-long continuing resolution (C.R.) on Friday, March 14. After 10 Democrats helped Republicans surpass the 60-vote procedural threshold needed to move to a vote on the C.R., the Senate then voted 54 to 46 to pass it and keep government programs funded through the end of fiscal year (FY) 2025 (Sept. 30). With some limited exceptions, the measure funds annually appropriated programs at FY 2024 levels through FY25. The C.R., which passed the House on March 11, includes needed increases for HUD multifamily housing renewals but shorts funding for other HUD programs while extending telehealth flexibilities for two years as well as other health-related extensions.

While the C.R. will keep the government funded until late September with only minor changes to Federal spending, conversations and congressional work on Federal budget reconciliation continues. As a reminder, budget reconciliation is the process being leveraged to approach Federal spending for the remainder of FY 2025 and FY 2026. Unfortunately, reconciliation is expected to include funding and policy changes that could bear great significance to long-term care and aging services providers throughout the country. The Federal savings required by the House resolution that was passed in late February cannot be achieved without deep cuts to Medicaid. In addition to Medicaid cuts, lawmakers are considering the elimination of the tax exemption of municipal bonds that are often used to finance capital improvements in non-profit health care facilities and affordable senior housing.

LeadingAge National and LeadingAge NY, along with members, have been meeting with our representatives in Congress to urge them to protect Medicaid and other programs affecting older adults. LeadingAge National has also sent letters to key congressional committees, urging them to do right by older adults on critical issues regarding Medicaid, tax-exempt municipal bonds, issues impacting non-profits, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) minimum staffing rule, and Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTCs). Read the letters here. Updated serial posts on the federal budget process are available from LeadingAge National here.

Here's what you can do!

Although the Federal government is interested in reducing spending, Medicaid cuts and the elimination of funding that supports older adults must not be part of the Federal spending plan!

All LeadingAge members are strongly encouraged to contact Congressional offices to advocate against cuts/changes to Medicaid! They need to know how important Medicaid is to your organization and the people you serve.

Talking Points: LeadingAge National has created two sets of talking points for members to use in talking to Members of Congress about the potential cuts to Medicaid in the reconciliation process.

• One set of talking points outlines the types of proposals being considered and provides general talking points on why they are harmful.
• The second set focuses more on aging services providers as well as the impacts on states.

Digital Advocacy Tools: There are several different letters that members can send to their Members of Congress with just a few clicks. Click here to write to your members of Congress TODAY!

Finally, please Join us in D.C. for LeadingAge National Lobby Effort! LeadingAge NY members are strongly encouraged to join us in Washington D.C. from April 7 – 9  for LeadingAge National’s 2025 Leadership Summit and Lobby Day! The Summit convenes thought leaders from across the aging services sector for mission-critical conversations. The event provides valuable networking and educational opportunities, but most importantly, the final day of the summit (April 9) will offer attendees the chance to join a coordinated lobbying effort on Capitol Hill. During the National Lobby Day, LeadingAge members will meet face-to-face with members of Congress to advocate against potential cuts to Medicaid and stress the need for enhanced federal funding and policies supporting long-term care and aging services for older adults. Click here to register for the Leadership Summit and/or Lobby Day!

 

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