This weekend, legislators approved a $220 billion New York State budget in the middle of the night, concluding weeks of intense advocacy by NYLPI alongside our coalition partners and clients.   Major priorities this year for NYLPI included expanding health coverage for all immigrant New Yorkers, fighting regressive mandates to further facilitate forced mental health “treatment,” rapidly scaling up climate and renewable energy funding in disadvantaged communities, and securing statewide funding for zero-emissions school bus and public transit fleets. 

Our fellow civil rights, racial justice, and climate advocates statewide have reacted with deep disappointment to the final budget legislation which rolls back bail reform, harms transit funding by suspending gas taxes, funds only a fraction of the climate investments called for by the state’s energy agency, and will direct $600 million in public funding for a new football stadium. 

Our campaigns also achieved important  – though partial — victories in this budget, including a mandate that all school buses in New York be zero-emissions vehicles by 2035 and an expansion of the state’s Medicaid program to cover immigrants over 65 and new mothers.

NYLPI shares in the deep frustration with the nontransparent process and regressive outcomes of this year’s budget negotiation and will continue fighting for legislative and legal solutions on these issues with our clients and partners.