Rochester-area lawmakers mark progress in Albany session

When state Sen. Jeremy Cooney looks back on the recently completed legislative session in Albany, he quickly points to securing $18 million to construct the long-distance bus terminal at the Louise Slaughter Station. He calls it a big budgetary win.

“The downtown Louise Slaughter Train Station becomes intermodal because now we have long distance buses … having a place to to integrate, and so becomes a new front door for Rochester,” says Cooney, who in May was named the new chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee.

Rochester and Monroe County benefited from the last session in various ways. Here are some local funding highlights from the budget:

■ Anti-poverty aid: $25 million;

■ Gun-Involved Violence Elimination, or GIVE, aid: $4.2 million;
■ Rochester city and school district social emotional/health and mental health services: $1.2 million;

■ ON-RAMP (One Network for Regional Advanced Manufacturing Partnerships): $200 million;

■ Aid and Incentives for Municipalities: $5 million; and 

■ Reinstatement of the “hold harmless” provision within foundation aid (which ensures school districts do not get less in foundation aid than in the previous year).

“That’s the first time we’ve been able to bring home the anti-poverty dollars, specifically for Rochester, in over 10 years,” says Cooney, who represents the 56th District. “So, that’s a big deal for the city of Rochester and the county of Monroe.”

The focus on Rochester and Monroe County—bringing home dollars and instituting policy changes that benefit area residents—was echoed by state Assembly members from the region. While these lawmakers did not accomplish all they set out to do at the start of the session, a sense of optimism prevails.

“There’s a number of things that are on the table,” says Assemblyman Demond Meeks, who recently won the Democratic primary for the 137th District. “As legislators, you have bills that you introduce, some of them may be a more of a priority than others, but you continue to work on them.

“When you look at how we get things done, most legislation that we’re able to move is by way of collaboration. When you build these strong coalitions that range from Buffalo to Brooklyn, and you galvanize support around these issues, we’re able to move them forward and get some movement.”

Meeks would have liked to do more with increasing Medicaid reimbursement rates. 

“You have Medicaid paying 70 cents on the dollar to a number of different institutions,” he says. “Think back to why we deal with so many challenges in the health care sector; individuals are overworked and underpaid, (institutions are) short-staffed. Those types of challenges come back to affect our community.”

For Republican Assemblyman Josh Jensen, who serves as the ranking minority member of the Assembly’s Health Committee, health care policy and legislation is top of mind. Jensen represents the 134th District, which includes Hilton, Greece and Spencerport.

“I’m having a lot of conversations about our health care system and how we deliver care to the population,” Jensen says. “How can we make the state’s spending on health care programs like Medicaid more efficient and more effective? How can we get more people covered with health insurance?

“I think after this past session, the deal that was in the budget to reform the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, a lot of people that I represent in Monroe County, and folks across the state, are really concerned about how those reforms are going to be implemented by the state,” he adds. “I continue to have a lot of conversations with the public, but also with advocates and federal legislators, about that program.”

Cooney had hoped to do more with temporary disability insurance.

“Temporary disability insurance hasn’t (been) raised from $140 for a week since 1989,” he says. “So, literally, since the year that Taylor Swift was born, we have not raised the benefit to families in New York State for temporary disability insurance. And so I’ve been trying to modernize that so that we’ve raised that benefit so it’s in line with things like paid family leave or workers comp, so that if you are injured, that you can still pay your rent, you can still provide for your family. Who can survive on $140 a week? That’s crazy. We’re so outdated.”

Meeks considers housing a top priority, one that requires continued attention.

“I signed on to legislation to basically look at a way to streamline and give different institutions that may have property and land at hand to move forward and potentially receive additional resources from the government to help move forward with building out housing for our communities,” he says. “One of those areas that we’re looking into is faith-based organizations throughout our community. You find some churches may be sitting on acres of land. And you may have parishioners right there in that congregation that are struggling with housing insecurity.”

He points to New York building houses on state-owned properties as an example. Meeks believes it could be done with church properties as well. 

“We also have some housing stock within our community, some is dilapidated to the point where it’s beyond repair,” Meeks says. “And others may not be looking at those houses that exist, that have been abandoned for some time, as an opportunity, not only for housing, but also for career technology, education, and opportunity to educate members of our community in the skilled trades.”

Jensen’s focus on prudent spending of taxpayer dollars remains. When it comes to Medicaid and early intervention, he says “we moved the ball down the field, but we didn’t air the ball out. So, we got closer to the end zone, but we’re picking up four or five yards at a time instead of trying to go for the big play, and it is something that can make substantial differences in people’s lives.

“I think that’s where I think we need to continue to make sure that we’re spending taxpayer dollars efficiently and effectively, so that we can continue to support programs that are proven to be effective,” he adds.

When Cooney returns to Albany in January, he wants to work to make high-speed rail a reality, starting with a study.

“We haven’t done a high-speed rail study in New York since 2006,” he says. “So, if we’re really serious about taking advantage of all this federal money, then we need to make sure that we have a modernized plan for what the technology looks like in 2025 versus 2000. The technology has dramatically changed.”

So far, the call for a study hasn’t received enough support.

“People kind of say, well, that’s kind of a pipe dream, right?,” Cooney notes. “But the difference is, (now) other states, Florida, Nevada, California, they’re implementing high-speed rail programs.”

In 2023, Florida launched a high-speed corridor linking Orlando and Miami with Brightline. Also last year, the Biden administration gave nearly $3.1 billion in grant funding to the California High-Speed Rail Authority for work on its system.

“This is happening contemporaneously,” Cooney says. “The question is, does New York want to play ball? I say, we are ripe for that opportunity, because of the opportunity to better connect a major economic hub, New York City, to Toronto. We can justify a significant federal investment in high-speed rail. And so we need to study to kind of start that process. That’s something I’m looking forward to doing next year.”

While the last session was a busy one, Jensen, in a June statement, said it was a “missed opportunity.”

“What one of my frustrations was about this past legislative session is it took a while for us to actually start doing much of anything,” he told the Beacon. “The first three months of the year, we passed a lot of chapter amendments, which are important because they help to form the implementation of the laws that are the bills that are signed into law.”

But negotiations on the budget, Jensen says, “sucked the oxygen out of the room.”

“Where we could have been having robust conversations about a lot of important things like public safety, like affordability, like health care, we weren’t really having those conversations because everybody was sort of in a waiting game to see what happened in the budget,” he recalls. “That’s one of the things that was actually more pronounced this year than in the previous three years that I’ve been in the Assembly, and that was frustrating for me.”

The Assembly passed 960 bills this year, Jensen says, and 402 of them were passed in the last week of the session.

“That stifles debate a little bit, that stifles public participation,” Jensen says. “I’d really like to see a more robust way to air policies, let the public have their say, and really ask questions of their elected representatives about what does it mean to their lives and to their livelihoods.”

He also would like to continue to build public participation in government.

“At the end of the day, if you have a closed system (with one political party in control)—only 150 members of the Assembly and the 63 members of the Senate and the governor know what’s happening—well, that’s going to make people less inclined to want to participate because they don’t know what’s happening,” Jensen says.

Smriti Jacob is Rochester Beacon managing editor. The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. Submissions to the Letters page should be sent to [email protected].