New York’s late budget has Disability Rights organizations both carefully watching what could happen with their priorities, while also planning for post-session meetings.
The state’s spending plan was due April 1, and Gov. Kathy Hochul, the Assembly, and Senate have been continuing to negotiate the budget for months.
“One of the biggest difficulties of the budget process and why it is late again this year is it perpetuates the lack of transparency of the overall process. We only know so much about what they’re discussing regarding Medicaid and healthcare, and some of that we only know because it’s been leaked to us or because staff or legislators have been willing to talk to us,” said Lara Kassel, Coalitions Coordinator with Medicaid Matters New York.
The spending plan for New York was due April 1. The main reasons for the extremely late budget are Hochul’s priorities around lowering car insurance costs, along with changing the state’s climate law to reflect more realistic targets for electric school buses and commitment to using renewable energy caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The late budget has caused ripple effects ranging from New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani delaying his proposed budget announcement nearly two weeks, to hamstringing what the legislature is able to do before session ends in early June.
Hochul’s proposed budget does not invest in Medicaid home and community-based services.
“The overarching proposal that she put in place you know from the outset of this process was the proposal to increase the Medicaid reimbursement rates for hospitals and nursing homes which is just entirely antithetical to the Medicaid Matters agenda as well as the overall principles and agenda of Medicaid and non-Medicaid consumer advocates across the state,” Kassel added.
Hochul did not propose any across-the-board cuts to Medicaid services. The budget caps enrollment in the Nursing Home Transition and Diversion Waiver program, allowing people to return back to the community who are living in a nursing home to receive services and supports. Those who are already in the waiver program are not changed.
Gov. Kathy Hochul
Last year the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP), a Medicaid-funded statewide program started by people with disabilities over three decades ago, was transitioned to Public Partnerships LLC (PPL). Since the transition began in January 2025, CDPAP enrollment dropped from 250,000 Consumers down to 170,000 because PPL was unable to assist people with disabilities in a culturally respectful way. Homecare workers were also going weeks without being paid and were offered benefits packages which were significantly less than what they were receiving through their previous agency.
“This administration has gone out of its way to really decimate access to homecare and personal care in very dramatic ways. When you have that as the backdrop to this year’s budget and there’s nothing with respect to managed long-term care it’s not surprising because that’s sort of in line with the goals she has had over the last few years,” Kassel said.
On May 7 Hochul announced a handshake agreement on the budget, which was quickly disputed by Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie. One of the many realities of living by the orbit of Planet Albany is legislators and their staff will only want to discuss budgetary issues while the budget is being negotiated. Otherwise, those issues fall to the wayside until the ten budget bills which make up the state’s spending plan are passed.
“Once the budget is finished up, at this point, all the committees will be doing their last committee meetings,” said Elizabeth McCormick, Director of Advocacy for the New York Association on Independent Living.
“We are wanting to focus a lot on the strengthening subcontractor facilitators of the CDPAP program and increasing oversight of CDPAP. We are working to end subminimum wage and ending the state’s sovereign immunity to claims under the ADA, and these are all priorities that take time to explain to people and it takes time to explain the impact this has on people,” McCormick added.
If New York waives its sovereign immunity under the ADA state employees would be able to sue the state for potential ADA violations. The 2001 Garrett Supreme Court decision said Title I of the ADA, with respect to state employers, is unconstitutional.
Once passed, the roughly $268 billion state budget will be the latest since 2010, when it was finalized on August 3.