Legislative Bulletin: Advocacy Day is Next Week!

Advocacy Day is Next Week!

Advocates, get ready: we are now just four days away from LeadingAge NY’s second 2018 Advocacy Day! We hope you will join us in Albany on Tues., March 6^th as we work to ensure that housing, adult care facilities (ACFs), assisted living, aging services programs, and Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORCs) are adequately represented in this year’s budget. It’s not too late for you to register or set up meetings with legislators! Please sign up today, and make sure your lawmakers know how the budget will impact your organization and those you serve.

This morning, LeadingAge NY held a prep call for all Advocacy Day attendees to go over our issue briefs, event logistics, and questions. All handouts, including our 2018 Budget Initiatives document and service line-specific issue briefs, were emailed to registrants before the call and are linked below. We recognize that there is a lot of information in these documents and encourage you to utilize just those that speak to your concerns.

If you are not able to be in Albany on Tuesday, you can still use these materials to educate your lawmakers at home. Legislators will be in their district offices on Fridays this month. Please schedule a time to meet and discuss your concerns!

Advocacy Day attendees who were unable to join today’s call should review the following logistics:

We will be in Meeting Room 1 on the Empire State Plaza in Albany. Parking information is available here, and a map of the Empire State Plaza Indoor Concourse can be accessed here. LeadingAge NY will have signs directing attendees to the Meeting Room.
Registration and breakfast will begin at 8 am. We will be set up outside the entrance to Meeting Room 1 and have nametags and printed handouts available for attendees.
Attendees may leave their coats and belongings in the Meeting Room during legislative meetings.
Lunch will be served from 12 to 1 pm.
The Meeting Room is reserved until 5 pm.

In addition, LeadingAge NY is once again asking participants to be active on social media in the lead-up to, during, and after Advocacy Day. Posting about your plans to attend Advocacy Day, taking pictures with your lawmakers on the day itself, and then following up on Facebook and Twitter afterward will be beneficial to our budget advocacy efforts and also help you engage your social media followers. Legislators shared, retweeted, and “liked” many of the messages from our Feb. 6^th Advocacy Day, and we hope to get them even more engaged on Tuesday! Please be sure to join LeadingAge NY in using the hashtag #SupportOurSeniors.

Lawmakers Reach Budget Revenue Consensus

On Thursday, Governor Cuomo and legislative leaders reached an agreement on the revenue amount for SFY 2018-19, estimating that receipts will be in the range of $675 million to $750 million above the Executive Budget estimate. The full Consensus Economic and Revenue Forecast Report can be accessed here. Both houses of the Legislature had released their own forecasts on Wednesday morning, with the Assembly projecting that revenues would be $1.252 billion higher than the Governor’s estimate and the Senate pegging the difference at $817 million.

Reaching revenue consensus is a critically important step in the budget negotiation process. With just under a month until the April 1^st deadline, the Assembly and Senate have begun finalizing their budget priorities and will be releasing their one-house bills in the coming days. Your lawmakers need to hear from you as soon as possible! Keep in mind that if our issues are not addressed in at least one of the one-house bills, it is highly unlikely that they will be included in the final enacted budget.

LeadingAge NY continues to focus our advocacy efforts on the following five initiatives and, during this critical period, asks members to do the same:

Additionally, we are still in the process of scheduling district office meetings with key legislators who represent large numbers of long term care providers. These meetings will be valuable opportunities to educate lawmakers about the impact that providers have on their communities, particularly with respect to jobs and services for constituents, and get them to champion our issues. If you are interested in working with us on this initiative or coordinating a similar effort in your region, please contact Ami Schnauber or Jeff Diamond.

LeadingAge NY, Other Groups Call for Immediate Investment in Public Housing and Long-Term Capital Strategy

On Tuesday, LeadingAge NY joined the New York Housing Conference, Enterprise Community Partners, and other housing organizations on a letter urging the Governor and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to make an immediate joint commitment of $500 million for the New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA) most pressing capital repairs as a down payment in a long-term capital strategy.

As the letter explains, the need for a long-term City-State partnership on public housing is particularly strong in light of President Trump’s FY 2019 budget request to Congress, which proposes zeroing out the Public Housing Capital Fund and cutting the Public Housing Operating Fund by more than 35 percent.

TBI/NHTD Managed Care Carve-Out Bill Advances to Senate Floor Calendar

Earlier this week, A.2442 (Gottfried)/S.1870 (Hannon), one of LeadingAge NY’s priority bills that would make the two-year delay of the transition of the Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Nursing Home Transition and Diversion (NHTD) waivers into Medicaid managed care a permanent carve-out, advanced from the Senate Health Committee to the Senate Floor Calendar. As previously reported, the waiver transition is due to occur on Jan. 1, 2019 despite a lack of associated cost savings and amid other significant programmatic changes for Medicaid managed care and Managed Long Term Care plans. LeadingAge NY strongly supports this legislation, and we ask that you encourage your Senators’ support for it when it comes up for a vote.

LeadingAge National to Host PEAK Hill Visit Webinar on March 8^th

Finally, LeadingAge National will be holding a special webinar on Thurs., March 8^th from 2 to 3 pm to prepare advocates for the Hill Visit portion of the upcoming PEAK Leadership Summit. In addition to reviewing specific agenda items for PEAK, the session will cover “the five specific things you can do to ensure your legislators and their staff listen up and take notice on our key issues,” “the most important things to know about your legislators,” “the logistics of a Capitol Hill meeting,” and “how to develop a winning message.” To register, please click here.

Contacts:

Ami Schnauber, aschnauber@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8854

Jeff Diamond, jdiamond@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8821