Meetings
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[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: Good morning everyone. Good morning. It is 2026. This is actually January 20, 11AM. And this is the first meeting of the New York State Senate Finance Committee for this calendar year, and I'm glad to see so many people, thank you. This is my ranker from the other side, Tom O'Mara, We're and joined by quite a few of our colleagues this morning. Would you like to introduce yours? Maybe it's the first committee meeting of the year. Why don't you introduce Yes, your Republican absolutely. Nominees to We're joined on our
[Senator Thomas F. O'Mara (Ranking Member)]: side by Senator Bill Weber, Senator Peter Oberacker, Senator George George M. Oberacker, Senator Joe Griffo, and Senator Pam Helming.
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: Great. And we're joined today by Senator John Liu, Senator James Skoufis, Senator Leroy Comrie, Senator Michelle Hinchey, Senator Jeremy Cooney, and myself Liz Krueger. And I'm the chair of that committee. And we have a relatively short meeting today, but because we're heading into budget hearings very soon that will take up an enormous amount of our time as committee members, we thought we would just try to get one committee meeting done before we start the budget hearings, so that there are some bills that could actually move, even if we're all sitting in budget hearings. I think all the legislators receive copies of the budget hearing schedule before the weekend, so make sure that you all know who, what, where, why. Well, the where is Conference Room B on the Bottom Floor of the LOB. But why, I don't think we have time to go into that. But the governor will be releasing her budget this afternoon. I believe she's doing a briefing in the Red Room I
[Committee Counsel (staff)]: think at 12:45. I have
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: no idea. I'm sure it's being streamed, but I don't believe the entire legislature is being invited into the Red Room. But I won't try to stop anyone if they decide to go. Okay, with that, I'm going to ask Brianna, our clerk, to start reading the bills.
[Brianna (Committee Clerk)]: S-four 87, Fernandez designates August 31 of each year as a day of commemoration to be known as Overdose Awareness Day.
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: Any questions or discussion? Move the bill. Okay, Senator Oberacker, Senator Liu to first and second the bill. I'm sorry, we've also been joined by, hello, how are you? Hello. Two additional senators, Senator Salazar and Senator, this is very embarrassing, Senator Benning. Randy Watson.
[Scott (Committee Policy Analyst)]: So what? I want to approach Mr. Borrello. I will not speak about the band's name.
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: Okay, I'm also being joined by Senator Shelley B. Mayer and so a bill has been moved, Senator F. Bernard does, printed number four eighty seven. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any without record? Okay, the bill moves to the floor. Next bill.
[Brianna (Committee Clerk)]: S518C, Persaud, requires the inclusion of cultural competency training in the basic training and pre employment course curriculum for state police officers and municipal police officers and sheriffs, members of fire departments and companies, correction officers, first responders, emergency medical technicians, and advanced emergency medical technicians.
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: Any questions or discussions? Oh well that's a move, is there a question? Question, yes.
[Senator George M. Borrello]: I don't expect you to necessarily have the answer, but there's already a lot of training that's required for all these folks, including de escalation training, dealing with a variety of special equipment. What does cultural competency training look like? I mean, what does a DMS provider need in an emergency situation and why is this necessary? Who's going to set the curriculum?
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: Scott, is there any analyst from this bill here?
[Scott (Committee Policy Analyst)]: So cultural competency training, sorry, in this bill is it's just things, you know, sensitivity to issues regarding race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age, and disability. And it's just it'll be 5% of any training, any basic training. Thank you, appreciate it.
[Senator Pamela Helming]: Senator Mayer. I just want to
[Senator Shelley B. Mayer]: say as someone who has fought with many of my colleagues on EMS related issues and representing many EMS departments that serve diverse communities, this is a modest improvement on what many of them currently know, and they frequently have to appear in homes where they're frankly not familiar with, for example, a family that only speaks Spanish or some other ethnic group that they really don't know very much about, so I think it's an excellent, modest addition to their training, and I think it really makes sense in the diverse communities that we work with.
[Senator George M. Borrello]: So if you're saying you're going to them with someone who speaks Spanish, we're not requiring them learn Spanish. No. I just don't understand what cultural competency training would look like in a field that is already crowded with a lot of requirements for people that are, at the end of the day, delivering life saving services in some cases. I just don't see it as being necessary, I appreciate your concern. Thank you.
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: And since it was the first committee meeting of the year, we were introducing the members, so we've also been joined by Senator Ramos and Senator Sepolveda, who is the new chair of the judiciary committee in the Senate. So there'll be lots of new fund overlap between the committees. Thank you. All right, all those in favor, oh sorry, we need to move the bill. Senator Cooney had asked to move the bill. Senator Bailey second the bill. All those in favor? Aye. Any without rec? Okay, I see Senator Helming. Is all the Republicans in the ballot? I have a nay. We have a nay. We have a yes. Okay. You got a vote? Thank you, okay, because I'm sure I took it out of order. Thank you, the bill moves to the floor. Next bill.
[Brianna (Committee Clerk)]: S-five 57, Krueger relates to designating the month of May as Maternal Mental Health Awareness
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: Any questions or discussion? I know some people think it should be twelve months a year. Is it? It should be, but we're not titling twelve months. I'm sorry, so Senator Ramos for you. Oh,
[Senator Pamela Helming]: thank you. I'll second the bill.
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: Oh, okay. So we have many seconds. So Senator Liu moves the bill, second of Senator Helming seconds the bill. All those in favor? Aye. Any without rec? Any opposed? That bill moves to the floor. Thank you.
[Brianna (Committee Clerk)]: S616, Stavisky relates to designating the month of May as Korean American Family Month.
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: Okay. Any questions or discussion? Yes. Senator Cooney moves the bill. Excuse me, Senator Salazar seconds the bill. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any without rec? All right, thank you. Next bill.
[Brianna (Committee Clerk)]: S-sixteen 88 Skoufis designates the fourth Thursday in March as Tuskegee Airmen Commemoration Day.
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: Any questions or discussion? Question.
[Senator George M. Borrello]: Yes, first of all, has always frustrated me, Senator Scholars knows, I actually had a Tuskegee Airman in my district who died waiting for this to be passed in New York State. All these bills, look at this, Opioid Awareness Day, know, Maternal Mental Health, we've seen all of these bills. Medal of Honor Day. Again, guess this is a rhetorical question, what is it in the other house that is preventing us
[Scott (Committee Policy Analyst)]: from having Tuskegee Airmen Day? What is controversial about that? Why aren't we, mean what is this, the fifth time you've had this bill at least?
[Senator George M. Borrello]: At At least. Yeah, I mean it's just, it's sad. You know, have days to celebrate flags of other countries,
[Scott (Committee Policy Analyst)]: we can't have Tuskegee Urim Day.
[Senator George M. Borrello]: I'm just, again, a rhetorical question, I'm just curious why No, and I agree,
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: I mean we chose to take a group of bills that have passed before that didn't seem particularly controversial, but were significantly meaningful to many subpopulations within the state of New York, and I don't know how to answer your question about the assembly other than we hope if we start early enough this year with these bills, we might actually be able to get through the timeframe. Look, it is true that the assembly has a much larger number of members, therefore they have a much larger number of bills. And we often hear at the end of session that there wasn't really controversy, they just didn't have time to get through them. They also have some different rules in the assembly versus the Senate, which some people like and some don't, but one that I'm quite aware of is they can do double the time per debate that we can. So you take double the number of members, double the number of bills, and then double the number of hours in debate, you start to understand the difference between process in the two houses without even getting into controversial issues. So we'll hope that the staff who track what goes on between the two houses will take a look at these bills sooner than later and see whether we can get them moved because I don't think anyone in this room disagrees with you. Thank you. Did we vote on Justice League? Do we have a vote? No.
[Scott (Committee Policy Analyst)]: I'll move the
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: Thank you. Okay. Senator? Senator Bailey. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any without rack? The bill moves to the floor. Next bill.
[Brianna (Committee Clerk)]: S1811 Fernandez designates May 9 as Opioid Awareness Day.
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: Any questions or discussion? Vote if moved. Second. Senator Feiler moved. Senator Helming seconds. All those in favor. Aye. Any opposed? Any without rec? That vote moves to the floor.
[Brianna (Committee Clerk)]: Pass 3,443, Harcom designates March 25 Medal of Honor Day as a day of commemoration.
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: Any questions or discussion? Move the bill. Senator Cooney is moving Senator the Luis seconding the bill. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any without a record? That bill moves to the floor. Next.
[Brianna (Committee Clerk)]: S3590A, Harcom enacts the Climate Resilient New York Act, establishes the Office of Resilience and a Resilience Task Force to assess and identify climate related threats and develop a statewide resilience plan.
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: Any questions or discussion? I a question. What
[Senator Thomas F. O'Mara (Ranking Member)]: is the fiscal implication of the previous new office? So no less than $1,000,000
[Senator Pamela Helming]: Yes.
[Committee Policy Analyst (Resilience)]: It accounts for a few salaries to get the office started, including the chief prison leads officer as well as other administrative costs associated with the office.
[Senator Thomas F. O'Mara (Ranking Member)]: Another question is, is it DEC and other agencies and departments in the state already doing this type of work?
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: So homeland
[Senator Thomas F. O'Mara (Ranking Member)]: security. Yeah. Yeah. Emergency response.
[Committee Policy Analyst (Resilience)]: The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, as well as the Superfund Act and a few other pieces of legislation in the last few years have created new project revenue streams and in order to plan for implementation of these projects, this bill, this legislation would establish resilience based parameters for state permitting and funding and so it's a little different than what DEC is already doing. They don't necessarily have all of the tools in place to do so and this would aid their work. I can further discuss this and get back to you if you have any other questions. I would like to add
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: Senator O'Mara. It's very much because we have multiple state agencies that have various pieces of this assignment. Climate is an enormous assignment for the state and the world. And so we have DEC, we have NYSERDA, we have NYPA, we have PSC, we have other sub agencies and committees relating to zoning for environmental issues and clean water issues that cross over multiple agencies. And the concern, frankly, is that everything's in its own silo, when in fact the solutions that we've been moving through with legislation and funding are often spread throughout a variety of different agencies. And so having an umbrella office that is actually looking at all of these in their entirety as opposed to individual siphons of budget lines in any specific agency will get us more bang for the buck.
[Senator Thomas F. O'Mara (Ranking Member)]: Thank you.
[Senator Pamela Helming]: Thank you. Senator Cooper. Senator Helming. So are you saying that this new agency would then take the place of some of those others and eliminate like
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: the onerous rules and regulations or would this be adding to creating more in addition to what already exists? I don't think that its existence answers that question one way or the other. It says there's going to be an office that's looking at all these different issues from a broader perspective than any individual agency.
[Senator Pamela Helming]: Would this office do permitting? Review the permit applications or
[Committee Counsel (staff)]: No, Senator, it doesn't review permit applications. The idea is to streamline a lot of these efforts together, gather under one umbrella, Senator Krueger said, so that disparate efforts can be combined. And there's, you know, broad stakeholder outreach throughout the state. And so that all these efforts can be brought together in one coordinated plan that's more efficient, more cost effective.
[Senator Pamela Helming]: Thank you. Senator Mayer. I just want
[Senator Shelley B. Mayer]: to add, this part of the creation of this office was a bill that I had which I agreed to incorporate into Senator Hopkins' bill that came out of experience in my district during Superstorm Ida. And any of us who had these big storms were, frankly, people, including municipal governments, not know who to call. They called DEC, and then they were told to call military and naval affairs, and they were told to call another department. They needed a central place where they could ask questions. Who has the money for this? Who can help us with these problems? Who can help us with people who are losing their apartments, which both Senator Ramos and I had as a result of flooding? It was simply to coordinate the information flow, and that's the goal of it. And in the communities that I represent that have been devastated by flooding, this would be extremely helpful, both the government, law enforcement, and the
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: individual people. Thank you. Fact, I remember with one major natural incident that I learned the state can't even go in and offer to help unless the local government asks them. The local government sometimes doesn't even know who to ask. So it's this ridiculous catch-twenty two where the local government knows it needs to help the state. It doesn't know who in the state it's supposed to be reaching out to and the state's not allowed to actually call them and go, hey, we could help you if you ask us. So it's all a little mass factor for a green discrimination.
[Senator Pamela Helming]: So Senator, think Senator Mayer, what you just said sounds like a good plan. I've had tornadoes through my district. I've had the flooding from the Great Lakes, the flooding from the Finger Lakes. I've had so many weather events, but my municipalities have not struggled. They either reached out to me or they reached out to dishes and they've gotten the assistance they need. And I apologize. I will go back and pull the actual bill, but when I read the summary here, it doesn't say any of that stuff. So I want to make sure that that's actually what this bill does. And for that reason, I'll be in AWI right now.
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: Thank you. Other questions or comments?
[Senator Pamela Helming]: Move it.
[Senator Liz Krueger (Chair)]: Senator Hinchey rules it Senator Leroy Comrie seconds it. All those in favor? Aye. Any without rec? Senator Hinchey? I'm sorry. And you're a yes, okay. So two nays, one yes, the rest without.