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Legislative Bulletin: One Week Until One-House Budget Proposals

February 27, 2026

 

ACTION ALERT: One Week Left Until We See One-House Budget Proposals!

We have approximately one week remaining in our advocacy to urge state legislators to prioritize long-term care and the needs of older adults in the Assembly and Senate one-house budget proposals!

One-house budget proposals are expected to be released sometime during the week of March 9th. As state legislators begin to meaningfully discuss which budget proposals will and will not be included in one-houses, it is critical that we keep the funding needs of long-term care and aging services providers top-of-mind for them.

LeadingAge New York has crafted the below service-line specific digital advocacy letters to help us keep the pressure on legislators for the remainder of 2026-27 budget discussions. Each letter takes only a minute to send. Simply enter your information to automatically send an email to the Governor and your State Senator and Assembly Member!

Please use the links below to send messages to your legislators and the Governor today!

 

After you send your letters, we strongly encourage members to share these links with colleagues, board members and volunteers. This is a simple and easy way to strengthen our unified message to the Legislature at this critical time.

In addition, LeadingAge New York’s Advocacy Day website will remain active over the coming weeks. We encourage members to continue to share our Budget Issue Briefs with legislative offices, and, if you haven’t already watched the recording of our Budget & Advocacy Day Prep Call, the messaging and key budget requests shared on that call remain relevant.

Thank you for your budget advocacy and for staying engaged with us throughout this process!

 

LeadingAge NY Day of Action Set for March 4th!

LeadingAge New York is calling on all members to participate in a Phone Call Day of Action on the morning of Wednesday, March 4th to urge state legislators to stand up in conference for the adequate funding of nursing homes and long-term care in advance of the one-house budget proposals.

Please use your voice on March 4th! Please call your State Senator and Assembly Member and urge them to be vocal in their respective conferences for the following:

  1. Continue last year’s funding of $445M and secure $750M of new funding for nursing homes (one-half share of new $1.5B to be divided evenly between nursing homes and hospitals).
    1. Why this matters: Acuity adjustments are frozen at July 2023 levels, and nursing homes went from 2007–2023 without an increase to their operating rate. We need a meaningful investment to stabilize the sector, enable us to secure the workforce our residents deserve, and ensure access to care for patients seeking discharge from hospitals. Helping nursing homes helps the hospitals, and hospitals have access to alternative funding streams outside of this $1.5B pool.
  2. Keep the 10% capital cut restoration and restore the remaining 5% cut from 2020 (approximately $16M).
  3. Emphasize the nursing home closure crisis (closure data points available on our general and nursing home issue briefs). see our Budget Issue Briefs for details).

Members of all service lines are strongly encouraged to pick up the phone and call legislators next week, and urge for the inclusion and support of the budget priorities that are most important to you! Find your state legislators’ contact information by entering your information here.

Your calls make a real difference. Please take a few minutes on or before March 4th to reach out to your legislators and make your voice heard!

 

LeadingAge NY Urges State to Stop the Closures and Fully Fund Nursing Homes

Earlier today, The Jewish Home and LeadingAge New York held a press conference, joined by state lawmakers, and local advocates, to draw attention to the growing nursing home funding crisis and its direct impact on New Yorkers and families in the Rochester area.

The event featured remarks from Michael S. King, President & CEO of the Jewish Home; Mike McRae, President & CEO of St. Ann’s Community; and Sebrina Barrett, President & CEO of LeadingAge New York. State lawmakers including Assemblymembers Harry B. Bronson, Sarah Clark, Josh Jensen, and Jen Lunsford participated, voicing their strong support for fully funding nursing homes in this year’s state budget.

The message was clear: the time for incremental solutions has passed. New York’s older adults deserve stability, dignity, and access to the care they depend on – and the state must act now.

The press event has already garnered some media coverage, and we are expecting more over the weekend. LeadingAge New York press release is also available here.

LeadingAge NY members are strongly encouraged to like and share this social media post, amplifying today’s media push!  

Thank you to all who participated in our many advocacy efforts this week, and who continue to stand with us. Let’s keep up the advocacy!

 

Recap: Housing Hearing & Affordable Senior Housing Advocacy Effort

On Wednesday, Feb. 25th, LeadingAge New York held a Resident Assistance Advocacy Day in Albany, planned in conjunction with our advocacy partners at LiveOn NY and attended by our shared members West Side Federation for Senior & Supportive Housing (WSFSSH) and Selfhelp Community Services. The day was a great success – check out this Facebook post!

We had a total of 15 meetings with members of the Senate and Assembly, their staff, and central staff with responsibility for developing the housing budget — all in one day, followed by attending the Joint Legislative Housing Budget Hearing. Offices we met with included Assemblymembers Rosenthal, Meeks, Levenberg, Lee, Norber, Chang, Kim, Burdick, and Brook-Krasny; Senators Martins, Helming, and Kavanagh; and Assembly P&C.

Our packed schedule of meetings and grassroots advocacy efforts are proving to pay off. During the Joint Legislative Housing Budget Hearing later that day, Assemblymember Dana Levenberg (D-Ossining) asked DHCR Commissioner RuthAnne Visnauskas questions about how the state supports older adults living in affordable housing and what it would take to implement a Resident Assistance program at the top of the hearing. The proposal was also supported in testimony by Rachel Fee of the New York Housing Conference (NYHC). Selfhelp, WSFSSH, LeadingAge NY and other advocacy allies who submitted in-person and written testimony urging for the funding and support of Resident Assistance in affordable senior housing.

Members can view the full hearing and all submitted testimony here. A recording of LeadingAge NY presenting verbal testimony on behalf of WSFSSH is available here.

On the same day of our meetings and the hearing, the legislation that would establish the program (A.1948/ S.9214) was reported under new sponsorship from the Senate Committee on Housing, Construction and Community Development, and is now poised to be considered by the Senate Finance Committee. We’ll be meeting with Senate Finance staff next week to keep the pressure on, as bills that have advanced through the Committee process are more likely to be included in the one-house budget proposal.

Earlier this month, Senator Kavanagh announced his plans not so seek reelection. We are grateful for his great work in championing the Resident Assistance legislation up to this point, and will continue to work with his office as he prepares for retirement and completes his work as Senate Housing Chair. We are confident that Senator Cleare (who chairs the Senate Aging Committee and is an ally to LeadingAge NY on issues across the continuum) will be an energized and equally effective partner in advancing this proposal and we are excited to continue our work with her office.

LeadingAge New York members are strongly encouraged to join our advocacy in support of this program. Please click here to contact your state legislators in support of Resident Assistance today!

We extend our gratitude to our affordable senior housing members who continue to lend their voice to our advocacy for Resident Assistance in Affordable Senior Housing. Even those members who were not able to attend in-person on Wednesday have provided critical feedback that helped shape our conversations with legislators and impress upon them the importance of service connection in affordable senior housing. THANK YOU!

 

LeadingAge New York Advocacy Continues and Expands Reach

This week, LeadingAge New York continued its advocacy push to educate offices who had not yet heard about our top budget priorities. On Tues., Feb. 24th, LeadingAge NY held an advocacy day focused on downstate Democrats. While the attendance at our advocacy day was impacted by the winter storm that hit NYC and Long Island on Sunday night into Monday, LeadingAge NY staff forged ahead with meetings to articulate the need for increased funding for long-term care providers.

Despite the challenging weather, LeadingAge New York staff met with 9 legislative offices on Tuesday, and several members held virtual and in person meetings throughout the remainder of the week.

While the conversations we had this week were productive and encouraging, members should continue talking with the state legislators who represent your region of the state, educating them about the funding we need in the NYS Budget and why it is so important to all New Yorkers.

It is critical that as many legislators as possible hear directly from providers about the impact of underfunding on the communities they represent. Please continue reaching out to legislative offices sharing your stories — we need to keep this pressure on as we await the one-house budget proposals.

 

SFY 2026-27 Executive Budget Resources from LeadingAge New York

 

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

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