Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York state lawmakers are being urged to convene a special legislative session – with plenty of big topics to cover.
Advocacy groups want to see a session to address the challenges the state is facing based on the federal budget megabill and some Trump administration policies. One of the areas most affected will be health care, as the state ends its expanded coverage plan because of the loss of federal funds.
Rebecca Garrard, co-executive director of Citizen Action of New York, predicted that other health-care impacts will follow.
“Hospital closures, health-care staff job losses in the most immediate term,” she said, “and that is, of course, because of the Medicaid cuts we anticipate coming. So, there should be emergency relief for rural hospitals, hospitals that are already short on funding, and for the ability to deliver services and maintain staffing.”
However, the federal budget megabill is expected to cost New York $3 billion total, with no current plan to make up those lost funds. Without some of these dollars, New York is also expected to stall in its efforts to alleviate what some see as a child poverty crisis.
Garrard noted that federal cuts to the Head Start and SNAP programs won’t help.
Advocacy groups also want to see immigration addressed in a special session. They want lawmakers to pass the “New York for All Act” to prevent local and state law enforcement from working with federal immigration agents. The bill has been considered each year since 2019, but hasn’t passed.
Garrard said she feels there’s a better way to allocate declining state resources.
“As we’re losing money for crucial things like health care, food for children in extreme poverty,” she said, “that expending any local/state resources towards assisting immigration authorities in their far overreaching and over-expansive goals is a good use of New York State taxpayers’ dollars.”
This comes amid Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids at courthouses, workplaces and schools, making some immigrant New Yorkers afraid to go about their daily lives.
Edwin is a reporter and producer in North Tonawanda, New York. He’s previously reported for the Niagara Gazette and the Ithaca Times. Edwin got an early start in radio interning for WBFO-88.7FM, NPR’s Buffalo affiliate. In 2018, he graduated from SUNY Buffalo State College with a B.A. in Journalism, and in 2022, graduated from Syracuse University with an M.S. in Communications.