Senator Skoufis: My Year in Review

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Investigations & Government Operations Committee

As chair of investigations, I’ve been able to take a magnifying glass to the seen (and unseen) issues impacting everyday New Yorkers. The Committee proactively investigates and exposes waste, fraud, and abuse; working to exercise effective oversight over our state government.

This year, we completed investigations into:

• Housing discrimination, which has a long tail throughout U.S. history and effects buyers and renters alike.
  Read the Report
• The live event ticketing industry, which is poorly regulated by decades-old laws that need to be brought into the 21st century.
  Read the Report
• An examination of New York State executive reports and studies. Laws are passed every year that require the state to evaluate policy or societal issues and produce reports, but many have never been written.
  Read the Report

Previous Committee investigations have examined building code enforcement - or lack thereof - throughout New York State, predatory practices of drug company middlemen, and anti-taxpayer abuse within public authorities and IDAs. All of the Committee’s reports led to significant legislative reforms being taken up and passed by the State Senate.

In the News
 

Community Events

When not in Albany, my team and I worked around-the-clock in our local community.  Together, we engaged with constituents at our “Skoufis on Your Street” town halls,  hosted roundtables with first responders and veterans, organized mobile document shredding events, hosted over 200 Newburgh residents at our inaugural community fair, visited classrooms and senior centers, hosted seven blood drives, connected with neighbors at fall festivals throughout the district, hosted a Q&A with area faith leaders, distributed 1,500 stuffed animals to local families for the holidays, and much more. 

Of course, this was all on top of our around-the-clock constituent services operation which served thousands of constituents across every issue imaginable, including helping 2,900 local residents still battling the financial impacts of COVID get their unemployment benefits.

Legislation

Finally, the meat and potatoes of my work as a legislator: this year, I passed the most bills of any of my colleagues (58 in all). Below, you can click through the selection of my bills that also passed the Assembly and were signed into law by the Governor. 

My team and I are grateful for so much this year, and we hope we’ve done you proud. Here’s to a spectacular 2022!