Governor Kathy Hochul delivered her State of the State speech last week on January 9th, and she released her Executive Budget proposal this week on January 16th. If you want to know some of the ideas that were presented at the Governor’s State of the State speech, read the article here with a State of the State breakdown. The budget does not contain every idea that was in the State of the State speech, and it will continue to be negotiated with lawmakers for the next two and a half months, but here are some of the proposals in this year’s Executive budget proposal, what they mean, and how they might affect you:

1. School aid budget of $35.5 billion. This includes $10 million specifically focused on the back to basics program, which will teach kids to read using phonics instead of sight words, to combat the falling literacy rates in young children. Over $200 million will be allocated to new operating funds for SUNY and CUNY campuses. This is the highest investment in education that the state has ever made.
2. $4.8 billion for the youth mental health crisis and serious mental illness. This includes a school-based mental health clinic to any school that wants one. This means anyone who needs help but otherwise could not get it now will have free access to a mental health clinic if their school has one. This proposal also includes expanding on things like in-patient psychiatric hospitals for those that need serious help.
3. Healthcare would receive funding totaling $96.4 billion. This includes 7.2 billion into the 1115a Medicaid waiver that will help hospitals, reducing barriers towards getting gender affirming care for adults on Medicaid, modernizing medical records by making their records digital, which will provide better safeguards to sensitive information, and investments in preventing or eliminating diseases like Hepatitis C, and HIV.
4. High school seniors now would have to complete a FAFSA application in order to graduate. The FAFSA application is a federal application to access financial aid for college. This proposal would help the many students who miss out on getting the money that they would need for college simply because they do not know about the different programs that can help them. This would solve that and help countless students who otherwise couldn’t go to college.
5. Housing issues would receive $11 billion in funding. The money is being allocated to the running of shelters and other housing solutions including turning hotels, commercial buildings, and other unused state owned facilities into housing. The state is also investing in mobile and manufactured homes to help make sure everyone has a place to live.
6. Childcare funding would increase. Eligibility for the child care assistance program would increase from 200% of the federal poverty line (60k for a family of 4) to the federal maximum of $99,250 for a family of 4. This makes more than half of young kids in New York eligible for child care assistance, based on income.
7. Increased state funding to help relieve food insecurity for families during the summer. $200 million would be provided to help provide more summer food programs that could help feed up to 2 million children statewide. During the summer many families of students who eat primarily at school during the school year struggle under the financial stress of the extra cost of food. This program would make it easier to get access to free food over the summer.
8. Increased Youth Summer Employment Opportunities. An additional $4.7 million, now totaling $50 million, would be put into continuing year round employment opportunities for at-risk youth through the summer employment program.

The Executive Budget is the Governor’s vision for the budget and is really just an opening offer. Now, the Assembly and Senate will work to create their own versions of the budget before then combining them all into one final budget by the April 1st budget deadline. Until the final budget comes out, everything is in flux and subject to change, any of the proposals mentioned above could be removed, and entirely new things could be added.