Taking Stock and Looking Forward

By Ryan Gregoire, NYSAC Legislative Director

The 2022 legislative year contained many successes for counties, beginning with this year’s state budget. Enacted during a period in which the state had a $40 billion surplus, Governor Hochul and the State Legislature used some of these resources to deliver on counties’ top priority of ending or sunsetting the practice of diverting local sales tax to fund state responsibilities, including a distressed health facilities fund and to support the Aid to Municipalities (AIM) program, a practice inherited from the prior administration. These victories alone will provide counties with $159 million in total annual savings—$109 million in savings for the 57 counties and $50 million for NYC.

In addition to our top priority of ending the diversion of local sales tax, this year’s state budget made progress on a host of county priorities.

• Increased public health department funding. Local health departments (LHDs) have been at the forefront of public health issues, including Covid, and serve as the first line of defense against all new and widespread public health crises. The enacted budget increases base grant funding to full-service LHDs to $750,000, and funding for partialservice LHDs to $577,500, allowing LHDs to better respond to new and emerging public health threats. The enacted budget also amends Public Health Law to make fringe benefits an eligible expense for Article 6 state aid, subject to a 50% fringe rate cap.

• Increased funding for community colleges. The enacted budget maintains a funding floor for community colleges at 100% of prior year funding, up from the 98% floor enacted in FY 2022. Without a funding floor, community colleges would have faced a $81 million (13%) loss in formula aid due to enrollment declines.

• Investments in broadband services. The enacted budget repeals the DOT Right-of-Way fee for all projects, which was a top NYSAC priority. Additionally, Governor Hochul proposed a new broadband initiative in her Executive

Budget called the ConnectALL program. Total investment for broadband initiatives is $1.5 billion, including $300 million for the ConnectALL grant program, and another $1.145 billion in federal funds. • Authorized fire departments to bill Medicaid and commercial insurance for EMS services. This legislation would allow fire departments and districts that provide advanced life support and other emergency medical services to recover costs for services that they provide. It authorizes these entities to establish a fee schedule and enter into a contract with providers of advanced life support services to be reimbursed for the expenses they incur.

• Capital investments related to pretrial or alternatives-toincarceration services. The enacted budget includes a $10 million appropriation to counties and nonprofit organizations to support capital investments related to pretrial, alternatives to incarceration services and reentry programs.

This includes equipment, technology, and facility renovations. Funding for this will flow through DCJS and a plan must be approved by the commissioner and director of the Division of Budget.

• New funding for veteran services. Current state law requires New York to provide every county and city

Veterans’ Service Agency with $10,000 per year, and an additional $5,000 for each increment of 100,000 people living in the county or city. The enacted budget increases the minimum annual state funding to Veterans’ Service

Agencies from $10,000 to $25,000. In addition, the enacted budget also includes $7.7 million to expand the

Joseph P. Dwyer Peer-to-Peer Veterans’ Support Program statewide, providing vital peer support and counseling services to veterans who are transitioning from military service to civilian life.

A full breakdown of the state budget impact to counties can be found on the NYSAC website: NYSAC.org/nysbudget.

The 2022 Legislative Session consisted of 62 session days beginning on January 5th and concluding on June 4th. During that time, the Legislature passed 1,007 bills through both houses, a modern-day record and slightly more than the 984 in 2021.

In addition to the state budget, the 2022 Legislative Session also resulted in many NYSAC legislative priorities passing through both houses.

• Carpet Stewardship - A.9279-A (Englebright) / S.5027-C (Kavanagh)

• County-wide Shared Services Reform - S.8887-A (Cooney) / A.10337-A (Lunsford)

• Municipal Recycling Funding - A.8300 (McDonald) /

S.9330 (Gaughran)

• Municipal Hazard Vehicle Green Lights - A.811-A (Wallace) / S.3532-A (Kennedy)

• Piggybacking Extension - A.9880 (Thiele) / S.8717 (Gaughran)

• Valuation of Condominiums for Real Property Taxation

Purposes - A.3491-B (Galef) / S.5946-B (Reichlin-Melnick)

• Financial Responsibility for Human Postexposure Rabies Treatment - A.7408-A (Gottfried) / S.7501 (Hinchey)

• Disabled Access Parking Enforcement - A.9805 (Magnarelli) / S.8822 (Kennedy)

For more information on the 2022 State Legislative Session, visit the NYSAC website and download a copy of our Legislative Session Summary. While no one can predict the future with absolute certainty, evidence suggests that 2023 will present new and continuing challenges for counties as a tight labor market, rising inflation, and a slowing economy threaten to impact county budgets. In response to these challenges, NYSAC will continue to advocate for funding and flexibility that counties need to deliver services while protecting local property taxpayers. Some of our specific top priorities for the coming year include:

• Fully funding any increase to Article 18-B assigned counsel attorney hourly rates by enacting S.3527-B (Bailey) /

A.6013-B (Magnarelli),

• Reforming the civil service process to help municipal governments across the state with recruiting and retaining public employees,

• Securing distribution from the state of federal Medicaid reimbursements that have not yet been passed to counties,

• Enacting legislation to establish maximum contaminant level goals for emerging contaminants in drinking water,

• Securing $35 million to offset the capital costs of increasing the number of Supreme Court judges,

• Authorizing gig economy industries, such as VRBO,

Airbnb, and other vacation and home rental agencies to collect sales tax for the state and counties (outside of New

York City),

• Increasing the CHIPS bidding threshold to $750,000. An increase in the threshold would give localities the flexibility and option to bid out or perform in-house projects under $750,000, and

• Increasing state funding to county veterans’ service agencies to a minimum of $50,000. This small increase will help counties hire a part-time veteran service officer to assist in processing benefit claims, link veterans to peer support services, and develop robust Dwyer programs.

This represents just a small snapshot of the many legislative priorities and policy actions that NYSAC will be advocating for in tandem with county leadership in 2023. We look forward to continuing our progress working with our counties, and state leaders in Albany to advocate on behalf of our mutual constituency—the New York taxpayer.

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