SERINO: BUDGET INCLUDES SIGNIFICANT MEASURES TO IMPROVE STATEWIDE AFFORDABILITY

ALBANY, NY—With school districts counting on the passage of the state budget, in order to responsibly plan for their own fiscal year, Senator Sue Serino (R, C, I—Hyde Park) today announced that she has joined with her colleagues in the Senate to approve a final state budget that will work to improve quality of life here in the Hudson Valley and across the state.

“I promised my constituents that I would work tirelessly throughout this budget process to ensure that the enacted budget is one that would increase affordability and improve quality of life in our community and across the state. While no budget is perfect, in this regard, this year’s budget delivers.

“Passing the extender last week, gave us the time we needed to continue to fight for the things that matter to our local communities, and to push back against counter-productive proposals that would waste taxpayer dollars and jeopardize public safety.

As a result, New York will usher in a new era of college affordability that removes the emphasis on ‘free’, and instead aims to improve quality and keep students in our communities after graduation—a key provision that I have been fighting for since day one. This provision will ensure that we see a direct return on our investment and slow our state’s ‘brain-drain’ by incentivizing highly educated students to set roots here, and actually contribute to our local communities. 

We will ensure that violent criminals do not receive a free pass for their crimes, but makes sure our criminal justice system provides young people with a reasonable chance to reform their lives; we have ensured that valuable tax cuts for middle class families and businesses remain intact; and we have passed the most significant workers’ compensation reform in recent memory which will help create jobs and actually reduce the cost of doing business in New York.

And notably, we will finally see ride-hailing expanded throughout our community, increasing access to transportation for everyone from our seniors to the countless local college students who call our community home.”

Highlights of this year’s budget also include:

• A record investment in infrastructure to improve the state’s roads and bridges and to ensure that communities across the state have access to safe, clean water;
• Reforming our workers’ compensation program to create jobs and make doing business in New York more affordable;
• An unprecedented level of Foundation Aid and record amount of overall school aid to ensure that children across the state have access to quality elementary and secondary education;
• Record funding for the state’s Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) to improve college affordability;
• Protecting a major income tax cut for middle-class families;
• A continued commitment to combat Lyme and tick-borne disease;
• Funding that will empower our seniors to age at home, in our communities by funding critical community services, fully funding the Elderly Pharmaceutical Insurance Coverage (EPIC) program and providing unprecedented funding to prevent elder abuse;
• Millions to ensure that direct care workers have the resources they need to continue to ensure that developmentally and intellectually disabled New Yorkers can live their lives to the fullest;
• Millions to strengthen prevention, treatment, recovery and education services to continue to combat the heroin epidemic;
• Over $5 million for various services to improve quality of life for our veterans; and
• Provides the highest level of funding in the history of the state’s Environmental Protection Fund (EPF) program.

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