Legislative Bulletin: Priority Legislation & Two Weeks Left of Session

May 30, 2025

Priority Legislation & Two Weeks Left of Session

There are two weeks remaining of the 2025 New York State Legislative Session. The final day of this year’s session is scheduled for June 12^th, however, there are some rumors that the State Assembly may opt to stay in Albany a few days longer, until June 18^th, to ensure the chamber can accomplish its legislative goals.

With many long-term care-related issues still front-of-mind for legislators, and with some of LeadingAge New York's own policy priorities remaining unaddressed, we need members to continue to advocate with us throughout the remainder of this legislative session!

Below are digital advocacy campaigns for many of LeadingAge New York’s top legislative priorities. We are working diligently behind the scenes, sharing memos and communicating with offices, urging for the support and opposition of all priority bills. However, we need member advocacy to ensure that your individual legislators know that these are constituent issues as well.

Please use the links below to email your legislators on priority bills today! Each link will bring you to a webpage where you can learn about the issue, read our legislative memo, and enter your information to send an email to legislators and the governor. All of the below action items – especially for the bills we oppose – are relevant and important to send right now. Please use these easy email links today!

New Advocacy Letters!

Ongoing Advocacy Needed!

Oppose an Increase in Nursing Home & LTC Provider Penalties (more information below)
Oppose New Unfunded Mandates on Nursing Homes! (more information below)
Oppose Requiring Written Consent for Antipsychotics
Support CCRC Revitalization Legislation!
Support Role of the Nurse in Adult Care Facilities
Support Streamlining Medical Evaluations in ALPs!

In addition to engaging in advocacy action alerts, we ask members to please maintain connection and conversations with legislative offices on bills and financial developments. If you have not already thanked your legislators for their support during this year’s state budget cycle, we recommend you do so as soon as possible. A template thank you note for state legislative offices is available here.

Thank you in advance for sticking with us for the remainder of the 2025 Legislative Session! We will keep you apprised of the latest advocacy action items via our Friday Legislative Bulletins and with other more urgent updates as needed.

ACTION ALERT: Please Oppose Enhanced Penalties on Long-Term Care Providers

A bill that LeadingAge New York strongly opposes has advanced to both the Assembly & Senate floor calendars: A.1118 (Paulin)/S.5744 (Cleare) would raise the maximum penalties for violations of the Public Health Law (PHL). These enhanced penalties would apply to any individual or organization that violates the Public Health Law. Penalties for violations by nursing homes, adult care facilities, and hospitals would be even higher than those imposed on other providers. Under current law, fines range from a maximum of $2,000 for first-time or no-harm violations to a maximum of $10,000 for violations that cause physical harm, regardless of provider type.

The bill would raise fines to a maximum of $5,000 for first-time, no-harm violations by nursing homes, hospitals, and ACFs and $3,000 for violations by other providers. For violations that cause serious physical harm, the maximum fine would increase to $20,000.

This legislation could be called up for debate or a vote on either house floor, on any upcoming state legislative session day. We must advocate against this bill NOW if we want to stop it from advancing further.

Take Action Now: Click here to contact your legislators urging them to reject an increase in penalties for nursing homes, adult care facilities, home care, hospice and other LTC providers!

In addition, members are encouraged to call State Assembly Members and Senators offices to vocalize your opposition and explain why your organization cannot endure more hefty penalties amidst inadequate and outdated reimbursement.

For nursing homes, remind offices that there is a $1.6 billion Medicaid funding gap for NY nursing home care, and that this year’s final state budget failed to restore any recent cuts to capital reimbursement and only provides $160 M (approx. 2%) in new Medicaid investment ($285M is continued funding from SFY 2025).
All provider types should remind offices of the growing demand for long-term/post-acute care or personal care options for older adults.
- Remind them of the workforce, financial, or operational challenges your organization already faces as you work to offer high-quality services to a growing number of older New Yorkers.
- Describe any consumer-focused stories that you are already witnessing as you work to provide care.
Finally, remind them that enhancing penalties before enhancing payments for care is an ill-advised approach to ensuring access to quality services.

Members may use the above digital letter content and our memo of opposition to further inform any conversations with legislators. Please let us know if you receive any feedback or questions from offices.

Bill to Require Designated Storage Areas in Nursing Homes Threatens to Pass Both Houses

Another bill which LeadingAge NY strongly opposes was recently approved by the Senate Health Committee and was reported to the Senate Finance Committee. The legislation, A.1365-A (Paulin)/S.15-A (Skoufis), would require nursing homes to develop and submit to the Department of Health (DOH) a plan for a designated location for the storage of bodies of deceased persons who pass while living in a nursing home, in the event of a declared disaster emergency. While the bill has been amended to require a plan for emergency response, this legislation will ultimately impose new, costly requirements on most nursing home providers, many of which are already experiencing financial distress.

In preparation for future emergencies that could impact all New Yorkers, this bill would impose a new and costly responsibility on nursing homes alone, instead of placing the responsibility on state and municipal authorities.

Bill A.1365-A (Paulin)/S.15-A (Skoufis) is now in Senate Finance Committee and has already been passed by the Assembly. Therefore, we must strengthen our advocacy against this new, unfunded mandate on nursing home providers!

Take Action Now: Please click here to email your State Senators and the Governor against this legislation!

In addition, if your State Senator sits on the Senate Finance Committee we strongly recommend you call their Albany office to vocalize your opposition to this bill! You can share our LeadingAge NY memo of opposition to this bill, available here. Talking points on this bill are available in recent editions of Legislative Bulletin. Please reach out with any questions.

Other Bills to Watch for End of Session: Workplace Violence, Wrongful Death, Fiscal Intermediaries Legislation

In addition to the bills and action items listed above, LeadingAge NY is working behind-the-scenes on several pieces of legislation that could impact members and the long-term care sector. Below are a few additional bills which have been introduced or appear to be moving in these final weeks of the 2025 legislative session which we want members to be aware of:

Workplace Violence: A.203-A (Cruz) / S.5294-A (Sepulveda) is a bill which was recently amended to include nursing homes. The bill amends Public Health Law to require nursing homes and hospitals to conduct a workplace safety and security assessment, develop a safety and security plan that addresses workplace violence threats and hazards, and adopt security measures and policies to prevent or minimize identified threats or hazards. Protecting the safety of residents, staff and visitors is among the highest priorities of New York’s nursing homes. However, this bill will only serve to replicate equivalent planning and training requirements applicable to nursing homes, while imposing new state-driven documentation and administrative burdens, without contributing in a meaningful way to workplace safety.

LeadingAge New York’s memo of opposition to this bill is available here and has been shared widely with the State Senate and Assembly Members. Members are encouraged to join us by personally sharing the bill memo with your state legislators.

Renewed momentum to advance this legislation has developed over the last week or two, and now, it appears the Senate is poised to pass the bill despite the lack of movement in the Assembly. Read more in this Crain’s New York Business article.

Wrongful Death Liability: A.6063 (Lunsford)/S.4423 (Hoylman-Sigal) is a bill that would amend the estates, powers and trusts law, to expand the damages recoverable in a wrongful death action to include compensation for the loss of companionship, loss of services and support, and loss of nurture and guidance. This legislation has been passed by both houses and subsequently vetoed by the Governor every year for the last several years.This week, the bill was passed in the Senate and delivered to the Assembly.

LeadingAge New York opposes this legislation due to significant concerns around its impacts on health care costs and ultimately access to care. Memo of opposition is available here.

Single Fiscal Intermediary, Repealer: A.8355 (Paulin)/S.7954 (Rivera) is a new bill introduced last week aimed at addressing the challenges that have emerged from the State’s transition of the consumer-directed personal assistance program (CDPAP) to a single fiscal intermediary. The bill amends the social services law, in relation to fiscal intermediaries under the CDPAP; and repeals certain provisions of law enacted in 2024.

According to the legislative bill memo, “this bill creates a new class of fiscal intermediaries beyond the Statewide fiscal intermediary (SFI) Fiscal intermediaries (FIs) will be the current Statewide fiscal intermediary as well as entities that are (1) an independent living center that has been operating as a fiscal intermediary since 1/1/24; or at the discretion of the Commissioner of Health, (2) an entity selected as a subcontractor under the single fiscal intermediary law as of 4/1/25.

“The fiscal intermediaries shall be required to have a contract with NYS Department of Health, shall have the same legal stature as the statewide fiscal intermediary, and shall be required to provide fiscal intermediary services with cultural and linguistic competency specific to the population of consumers and those of the available workforce.”

Read recent news coverage on this legislation in this Spectrum News article here.

Apply to IGNITE Leadership Academy - Applications Due June 20^th

LeadingAge New York is pleased to share the application for our 2025-26 IGNITE Leadership Academy class. IGNITE is a year-long professional development program designed to facilitate the development and growth of senior living leaders in the state. The experience provides participants with the tools they will need to be outstanding leaders in their organizations. It differs from an MBA-type program in that its focus is on teaching participants how their own thinking and values are key components to developing their own qualities of leadership. In addition, they acquire the tools to help them work with teams, build successful teams, and collaborate.

The program was established in 2013 and is modeled after the national LeadingAge Larry Minnix Leadership Academy. Graduates of the national program recognized that this valuable program was needed on the state level to inspire, nurture, and empower leaders from NY’s non-profit provider community. Only employees of LeadingAge NY provider member organizations may apply for the program.

The deadline for applications for the 2025-26 class is June 20^th. For more information about the program, click here. Anyone with questions about IGNITE can contact Nancy Caban at ncaban@leadingageny.org or Diane Darbyshire at ddarbyshire@leadingageny.org. Both can be reached at 518-867-8383.

Contact: Sarah Daly; 518.867.8845; sdaly@leadingageny.org