Jump to content

Senator Tom O'Mara

Contributor
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    125

  • Joined

  • Last visited

    Never

  • Days Won

    1

Blog Entries posted by Senator Tom O'Mara

  1. Senator Tom O'Mara
    One of the most controversial actions of Governor Kathy Hochul’s proposed 2024-2025 state budget is her move to cut education aid to more than half of New York State’s school districts outside of New York City.
    If enacted, the governor’s proposed education cuts would fall most heavily on certain regions, including many small, largely rural school districts across the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes. Here's a few of the most staggering cuts to schools in the 58th Senate District: Hammondsport would suffer a 30.7%  or $1.6M cut; Penn Yan, 18.5% or $2.2M cut; Watkins Glen, 16.8% or $1.9M cut; and South Seneca, 16% or $1.5M cut.
    The governor’s education proposal can’t stand. The property tax increases required to ameliorate these cuts would be prohibitive. That’s the message my Senate Republican colleagues and I delivered at the Capitol last week.
    As I’ve stressed time and again, New York State has been steadily moving closer to the edge of an economic and fiscal cliff – due in large part to the spending appetites of former Governor Cuomo, Governor Hochul and, since 2018, the Democrat-controlled, biggest-spending Legislature in state history. The bottom line is that the state budget, between 2018 and 2023, has grown by upwards of $60 billion!
    This growth is in the first five years of one-party Democratic control of both houses of the state Legislature, and the offices of Governor, Comptroller, and Attorney General. Just that growth alone is larger than the budgets of more than 30 states.  It is larger than the states of Florida and Texas combined, each of which has a larger population than New York.  It spends 1½ times more per capita than California which has more than twice our population.
    From the outset, many of us have warned about this out-of-control spending, that it would never be sustainable and puts a new generation of state and local taxpayers at risk of shouldering an even heavier burden far into the future (keeping in mind that New York is already recognized as one of the highest-taxed, least affordable to live, and most unfriendly to business states in America).
    In fact, the bill’s already coming due for Democrat overspending. We start the current year facing a state budget gap of $4.3 billion, with ongoing deficits in the next three years projected to be $5 billion, $5.2 billion, and $9.9 billion, respectively.
    Consequently, Governor Hochul – suddenly painting herself as a diligent fiscal disciplinarian and watchdog -- unveiled her 2024-2025 state budget proposal with the following statement, “We can't spend like there's no tomorrow, because tomorrow always comes.”
    That’s true, however the governor needed to stand for it long before now. And it’s equally important to understand the context of the governor’s full game plan this year.
    Her opening gambit offers a $233-billion spending plan, an increase of $4 billion over New York’s current budget that represents a significant increase and, if enacted without any changes at all (and I've yet to see the Legislature come back with a budget that spends less than the Executive's proposal) will be the largest-ever state budget.

    There are proposed cuts and negligible belt-tightening, but not truly for the sake of any long-term fiscal discipline in this state. It’s being done, instead, to accommodate higher (and long-term) spending elsewhere – while, at the same time, knowing full well that the Legislature is left with no choice but to demand restorations in key areas.
     As I noted at the start, education is the prime example of this gamesmanship. Governor Hochul’s proposed budget calls for the elimination of what’s known as the “save harmless” provision of the state education aid distribution formula. “Save harmless” is utilized to ensure fiscal stability for school districts, especially high-need districts, and has long been critically important to small and rural schools. According to our Senate Republican budget analysis, this move would cut nearly $170 million from approximately half of the state’s school districts and result in particularly hard hits in specific regions of the state, including, as I said, small and rural districts across the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes.
    The Governor made much fanfare of “consumer protections” in both her State of the State and Executive Budget presentations.  However, her education budget proposal is nothing short of “Bait and Switch” lacking “Truth in Advertising.”
    While local school districts get cut in excess of $400 million in this budget, she includes another $2.4 billion (bringing the two-year total to $4.3 billion) to provide taxpayer-funded assistance and services to the ever-growing surge of asylum-seeking migrants flowing into New York from the nation’s southern border.  In addition, to add insult to injury, the state will pay the federal government $15 Million to rent a former military base, Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, for use as a migrant shelter to house migrants the federal government has allowed to flow illegally across the Rio Grande!
    Her budget also spends $150 Million for floating pools in the rivers of New York City (I kid you not) and $45 Million for planting trees, to name just two. These may be nice things, but not in times of what should be fiscal austerity and in the midst of staggering cuts to rural, suburban, and small city school districts.
    That’s just one example of the shell game going on here.
    In other words, Governor Hochul’s proposed budget is not truly aiming for long-term fiscal discipline and responsibility. It’s a budget that in the name of fiscal discipline attempts to take away from some to keep giving away far more to others.
    That’s a game we can never play, in my opinion, with the quality of education for our small, rural school districts across the Upstate region, or any school district at all for that matter.
    The Senate Republican budget analysis reaches this conclusion, “As proposed, the Executive budget includes few proposals to deal with the high cost of the everyday lives of New Yorkers. There is little in the category of affordability proposals advanced, that work towards mitigating the increased costs in food, home fuel or transportation that everyday New Yorker’s face. There is little in the way of improving New York’s business climate which has been rated one of the worst in the nation. There is little in the way of addressing the State’s outmigration problem which, according to a study in October of 2023 by the Economic Innovation Group, has caused New York to lose $24.8 billion in net adjusted gross income (AGI) during the pandemic.”
    That's a significant loss of tax revenue.
    We desperately need to get New York State’s fiscal house in order. But it’s outrageous for Governor Hochul to target small, rural school districts. That’s not an answer to this state’s deep-rooted fiscal irresponsibility. It’s just redirecting misguided priorities that won’t move us any closer to fiscal stability, taxpayer relief, or long-term affordability and sustainability for most New Yorkers.
    I need you to join in the fight opposing Governor Hochul's budget cuts to our schools and handouts to illegal immigrants.  Please contact the Governor directly by calling 518-474-8390 and by emailing at: governor.ny.gov/contact.
  2. Senator Tom O'Mara
    Last March, right around this time, we were at the beginning stages of a COVID-19 response that would turn the world and our individual lives upside down in ways most of us never envisioned at the start. 
    It was also at this time last year that Governor Cuomo and legislative leaders in the Senate and Assembly were negotiating a new state budget. Once the details of the state’s 2020-21 fiscal plan began to leak out, I issued the following warning on March 23, 2020, “We are facing an unprecedented shutdown of New York State’s government, economy, individual communities, and day-to-day life. Everyone’s attention is focused and needs to remain focused on getting through this public health crisis. We can do a budget that keeps this state running and meeting its obligations throughout this emergency. Once we have weathered this storm, we can get to work assessing the damage, determining who and what needs repair, and have an open and full discussion on the best way to move forward for this entire state, upstate and downstate. That would be common sense. That would be responsible. That would be fair. I hope that’s the course Governor Cuomo and legislative leaders will take.”
    One year later, the same warning holds true. All signs point to the fact that we have weathered the worst of this pandemic. We are reopening economies, schools, and the everyday fabric of our communities. Vaccine supplies are ramping up and distributions are expanding.
    In short, there is, finally, real hope that life as we knew it before last March, in large measure and after great pain and sacrifice, can and will return.
    This week, legislative conferences in both houses of the Legislature – Senate Republicans and Senate Democrats, Assembly Republicans and Assembly Democrats – will put forth “one-house” budget documents essentially spelling out each conference’s fundamental priorities for the final 2021-2022 New York State budget.
    This year’s final budget, the first that can at least begin to look ahead to the post-COVID future, still needs to be a budget of restraint, I believe.   
    In other words, the newly enacted federal stimulus relief package delivers a windfall to New York’s state and local governments, somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 billion. It is a massive, one-time infusion of federal aid that, in my opinion as well as in my position as the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, needs to be utilized responsibly.
    One of New York’s leading fiscal watchdogs, the Empire Center, puts it this way, “The highest priority of state and local officials should be to avoid plowing the federal money into recurring spending commitments that will create bigger budget deficits in the future. In an ideal world, New York pols will embark on a careful, painstaking assessment of needs, weighing short-term relief against recurring long-term benefits.”
    That’s well said and I would largely reissue my March 2020 warning about not going too far too fast in this upcoming state budget until “we can get to work assessing the damage, determining who and what needs repair, and have an open and full discussion on the best way to move forward for this entire state, upstate and downstate. That would be common sense. That would be responsible. That would be fair. I hope that’s the course Governor Cuomo and legislative leaders will take.”
    As far as I know or have seen, there has not yet been a full, thorough, transparent accounting and assessment of the deep-rooted, grassroots-level impact COVID-19 has had and will continue to have on New York and all of our communities, in every region of the state, over the next several years.
    And yet, the clouds are already forming that Governor Cuomo and the Democrat majorities in the Senate and Assembly are preparing to grab hold of this one-time federal funding and still embark on a wild goose chase for even more, new, unneeded revenue – through massive tax increases and other actions – in order to move forward with massive new spending with New York State already facing potential budget shortfalls and other fiscal burdens for years to come.
    Furthermore, and equally alarming to me and many others around the Capitol: We are very concerned that Governor Cuomo, who is hanging on by his fingernails under the weight of multiple and growing scandals, will not hesitate to use this budget process, through which he can exercise extraordinary power, to buy off the Democrat legislative majorities from aggressively pursuing his removal from office.  
    These next several weeks will be telling and critically important for future generations.
  3. Senator Tom O'Mara
    Several weeks ago, I highlighted in this column that a long-awaited report on New York State’s COVID-19 pandemic response, first commissioned by Governor Hochul more than two years ago, was finally released.
    It’s a report that cost state taxpayers more than four million dollars and it hasn’t exactly drawn rave reviews. Far from it, in fact.
    Remember that the governor released the report at the beginning of July with very little fanfare, to say the least. No press conference. No reassurances that the report points the way to more effective state responses in the future. Instead, it was quietly put out on a Friday afternoon -- common timing for news you want buried -- and just three days AFTER former Governor Cuomo testified to Congress on the very subject matter of that report.
    That’s because the report sheds virtually no accountable, honest, or transparent light on New York State’s response to what was certainly the most devastating public heath crisis in modern history. And after all this time – and after all that so many New Yorkers suffered and lost throughout the pandemic, the lost lives and livelihoods – that is a failure of the first order at the highest levels of state government.
    Shortly after the report’s release, the Empire Center for Public Policy stated, “Hochul had commissioned a $4.3 million after-action review of the crisis, saying she wanted it to cover ‘the good, the bad and the ugly’ and bolster the state’s preparedness for future outbreaks. Yet the 262-page report from the Olson Group, a Virginia-based consulting firm, turns out to be thinly researched, poorly argued, ill-informed, sloppily presented and marred by obvious errors. Although many of its findings ring true, it glosses over or ignores some of the state’s most questionable actions – such as ordering thousands of Covid-positive patients into nursing homes.” 
    Thinly researched. Poorly argued. Ill-informed. Sloppily presented. Marred by obvious errors. All at a cost of at least $4.3 million. Furthermore, the report itself admits that “a number of key officials were unwilling to participate (emphasis mine)” because they were worried “about possible litigation and other legal actions.”
    In other words, key figures involved in the day-to-day decision making and implementation of the state’s response didn’t even participate in what was supposed to be a comprehensive after-action review. It leaves the matter where it started: nowhere.
    Most recently, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, who has long been one of New York’s most prominent and respected Democrats, wrote in an op-ed for the Albany Times Union, “The Olson report is a missed opportunity to provide answers or restore confidence in New York’s emergency planning. It is replete with large and small errors and omissions – most egregiously the undercounting of those who died in nursing homes. Without a thorough and accurate assessment of New York’s pandemic response, based on reliable research and thoughtful analysis, we will not learn from our mistakes and successes. Instead, the report leaves us without answers, and it particularly failed those who lost people in nursing homes who at the least want the deaths of their loved ones to have been counted.”
    The comptroller concluded, “It's time for full consideration of proposed state legislation to establish an independent commission, with subpoena power, to provide the comprehensive accounting New Yorkers deserve.”
    The creation of such an independent commission, with subpoena power to compel testimony from every key decision maker, has long been called for by myself and our Senate and Assembly Republican conferences, as well as a handful of other leading Democrats, for years now. Sadly, key state leaders continue to ignore the urgency for an independent, transparent, no-holds-barred, top-to-bottom examination of all the decisions that were made and all the actions that were taken during the COVID-19 response and recovery.
    Having had a front row seat as the ranking member on the Senate Investigations Committee throughout the pandemic, for me the Olson Report simply stands as a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars and, most egregiously, fails to move this state forward in meeting the fundamental responsibilities of accountability, justice, and preparedness in the aftermath of this crisis.
     
    Senator Tom O'Mara represents New York's 58th District which covers all of Chemung, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga and Yates counties, and a portion of Allegany County.
  4. Senator Tom O'Mara
    Now it’s our turn.
    Over the past few weeks, Governor Hochul has had her say and put forth her priorities for New York in both a State of the State message and, most recently, in last week’s unveiling of her proposed 2024-2025 executive budget.
    Ultimately, she will undertake negotiations with her Democrat counterparts in the Senate and Assembly leadership to put in place a final state budget that will carry New Yorkers forth into the ongoing, all-Democrat vision for New York’s future – a future, by the way, that too many New York residents keep telling us they’re not happy with.
    But now there’s another vision for this state’s future. Last week at the Capitol, the Senate Republican Conference unveiled a plan that we’re calling, “A New Hope for the Empire State.”  It’s a comprehensive legislative agenda that, we believe, pinpoints the failings and shortcomings of New York government under all-Democrat control, which speaks to challenges and crises that one-party government is not addressing, and that begins proposing alternative priorities and solutions for where we want to take this state.
    It's a legislative agenda putting forth ideas and strategies for fighting back against the high taxes and excessive cost of living that have delivered to New York the dubious and devastating distinction as the state with the highest population losses in America.
    It’s a legislative agenda putting forth ideas and strategies for fighting to reclaim some sense of law and order again in New York, a state under all-Democrat leadership where the criminal element runs rampant, rising crime and violence rules too many streets and neighborhoods, and a “no consequences” approach to criminal justice has made a mockery of public safety and security.
    It's a legislative agenda putting forth a bolder and stronger commitment to responsible fiscal practices including spending restraint, across-the-board tax relief, regulatory reform, commonsense investment, serious mandate relief for local governments, and the value of local decision-making.
    In other words, it’s a legislative agenda giving voice to priorities and responsibilities in New York government that, to put it as simply and straightforwardly as possible, have been handed a death sentence by Albany’s current powers that be.
    In putting forth a detailed report on “A New Hope for the Empire State” last week, we wrote, “Over the last five years, New Yorkers have had a front-row seat to what unaccountable government looks like. One-party control has made New York increasingly unaffordable. Residents feel unsafe and are unsure that things will get better in the future. Far too many New Yorkers have looked at this sad reality and decided the only option was to leave the state for somewhere they can make a better life for their families.”
    You can find out more about “A New Hope for the Empire State” and read our full report on my Senate website, www.omara.nysenate.gov.
    In announcing the plan, Senate Republican Leader Rob Ortt said, “New Yorkers are deeply dissatisfied with the direction of our state and our Conference is here to provide an alternative path forward. I have traveled throughout the state and people are tired, frustrated, and angry. They feel forgotten.”
    Here at the outset of the 2024 legislative session, these ideas demand and deserve a place in this government. We face an affordability crisis. We face a border crisis. Law and order are in free fall. The Albany Democrat direction for New York simply fails to produce any hope for a long-term, sustainable future for communities, families, workers, businesses, industries, and taxpayers. New York is a state in decline that continues to become less safe, less free, less affordable, less economically competitive, less responsible, and far less strong for the future.
    We are at a dangerous crossroads and we must enact an across-the-board agenda to cut taxes, address affordability, and rebuild stronger and safer communities – and we’ll be fighting for this new direction and a new hope every step of the way in the weeks and months ahead.
    Senator Tom O'Mara represents New York's 58th District which covers all of Chemung, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga and Yates counties, and a portion of Allegany County.
  5. Senator Tom O'Mara
    One of the time-honored traditions throughout this holiday season is to gather around the table to share a meal, express thanks, and count blessings in the company of family, friends, neighbors, and even sometimes the community at large.
    It’s a chance, as well, to reflect on the contributions of farmers and the entire agricultural industry here at home in the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes regions, throughout New York State, and across America. A recent state report, “A Profile of Agriculture in New York State,” does just that and stands as a timely reminder.
    “Agriculture is an important part of New York State’s economy, and farmers make significant contributions to the State,” State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli notes in the new report from his office (the full report can be found here: www.osc.ny.gov), “In New York’s rural counties, farming can be a significant driver of the regional economy, spurring a suite of support businesses supplying equipment, repair services, seed and soil conditioners and veterinary services, as well as sustaining employment.”
    The latest figures from the federal Department of Agriculture show that farming is practiced in every county in the state. Nearly 31,000 farms and farmland account for over 21 percent of the state’s area. New York’s agricultural sector contributes $2.7 billion to the state’s gross domestic product and directly supports over 163,000 jobs. In short, the industry is a foundation of the statewide economy and the food supply networks vital to the future.
    Over the past two decades, working through the “Harvest for All” program linking Farm Bureau and Feeding America in every state in the nation, New York’s farmers have been national leaders. In 2023, our farmers donated eight million pounds of food to regional food banks, the second highest donation total in America.

    In short, farming and agriculture remains the anchor of a way of life that has long defined and sustained so many communities and regions. New York has many agricultural products that consistently rank in the top 3 nationwide, including maple syrup, grapes, wine, red table beets, apples, cabbage and milk, yogurt and cheese.
    The comptroller’s report also found that:
    Agritourism and recreation in 2022 saw the largest increase in farm-related income, a 78% jump since 2012. Research from Cornell University found that farming and related supporting businesses directly supported 163,148 jobs in New York in 2019. In 2022, New York’s farms paid a total of $6.2 billion in expenses, an increase of $1.9 billion from 2017. From 2012 to 2022, hired labor expenditures grew by 68%, far surpassing other categories. Despite economic growth, between 2012 and 2022, the state lost close to 14% of its farms and over 9% of farmland. New York is losing farms and land at a faster rate than the U.S. and all neighboring states except Connecticut (farms) and Massachusetts (farmland). The overall decline of farmland is troubling, as conversion to other uses, particularly residential, commercial or industrial, may prevent its use for farming in the future. This includes 1,728 acres located in agricultural districts classified as solar electric generation facilities. “New York’s diverse farms are an essential part of the state’s economy, but there are increasing challenges that are changing the agricultural landscape,” according to the comptroller. “Volatile commodity prices, labor pressures and extreme weather are adding to the unpredictability of farming that is contributing to the consolidation and the loss of farms. Policymakers must consider the ways in which state programs and policies affect this sector.”
    Approaching the start of a new legislative session in January, it will be important for New York’s lawmakers and policymakers to renew a strong commitment to ensuring that our actions will not undermine an industry and a way of life that has defined the regions we represent. We cannot afford to change the face of New York State agriculture as we have known it for generations. We can’t risk the future of high quality, local food production or take steps that could spark the loss of more family farms and the livelihoods these farms support throughout hundreds of local economies. Now is no time to risk regulating and mandating an even more uncertain future for family farmers, farm workers, farm communities, and New York’s agricultural industry overall.
     
    Senator Tom O'Mara represents New York's 58th District which covers all of Chemung, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga and Yates counties, and a portion of Allegany County.
  6. Senator Tom O'Mara
    The State Legislature’s 2021 regular session, which ended late last week, will have long-lasting ramifications for our region and for all New Yorkers.
    Without question, it will be remembered as a year of turning points -- the biggest one, of course, being that we have finally started turning the corner on the COVID-19 pandemic with steadily dropping infection rates and rising numbers of vaccinations. I’ll get back to the pandemic emergency later in this column.
    The new 2021-2022 state budget, as I have pointed out numerous times in this column, increased state taxes by nearly $5 billion and hiked state government spending by a whopping $18 billion (to an eye-popping total of $212 billion – a budget more than the budgets of the more populous and growing states of Florida and Texas combined).
    In fact, the Albany Democrat giveaway in this new budget went far beyond any reasonable sense of fairness, responsibility, or sustainability for hard-working, taxpaying citizens. Governor Cuomo and the legislative Democrat supermajorities enacted a tax-and-spend plan that will force future generations of taxpayers to foot an enormous bill for the pursuit of a so-called progressive, far-left, extremely liberal, largely New York City-based agenda. It’s an outrageous wish list. In a state long known as one of the highest-taxed, highest-spending states in America, this Albany Democrat vision for New York’s future sets a new standard of foolhardiness, including a new taxpayer-financed, $2.1-billion fund to provide lump-sum payments of up to $15,600 to illegal immigrants who were excluded from receiving federal stimulus checks or unemployment benefits since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
    We had an opportunity and a responsibility to utilize a one-time windfall of roughly $13 billion in federal stimulus aid under a fiscally responsible, short- and long-term strategy for the post-COVID rebuilding, restoring, and resetting of local communities, economies, environments, and governments for the long term. Equally important, we needed to recognize the fiscal cliffs New York could face for the foreseeable future, steer clear of any massive new taxing and spending, and bolster the state’s emergency reserve funds. That’s not what this budget did. It sets up an economic and fiscal disaster.
    This year’s budget is another turning point, in my view, one that moves New York toward an even more unsustainable future for generations of taxpayers. Recall the "Gap Elimination Adjustment" draconian cuts to education Albany Democrats imposed in 2010, the last time they held majorities in both houses of the State Legislature.  They've set us up for similar cuts two years from now after the Democrats blow through the federal COVID-19 relief windfall and this year's record increase in state spending.
    The same goes for this state government’s direction on issues of criminal justice and corrections, and law and order. Bail and discovery reform, parole reform, prison inmate violence, a building “defund the police” movement within the highest levels of state government, over the past two years under one-party control of state government, we have seen a pro-criminal mentality take hold, one that has gone too far and keeps going too far in New York.
    It also marks a dangerous and disturbing turning point for public safety and security. We need to keep standing up, speaking out, and working against it.
    Back to the pandemic. One of the year’s most egregious turning points, for me, is that the Albany Democrats left town last week without declaring an end to the COVID-19 state of emergency declaration in New York State and without bringing an end to Governor Cuomo’s one-man rule.
    The so-called repeal action by the Legislature’s Democrat supermajorities back in March was nothing more than a smokescreen to allow the continuation of government by Cuomo edict. In fact, that action removed the April 30, 2021 date when the governor’s powers were supposed to automatically expire and, instead, extended Cuomo’s unilateral powers indefinitely until he declares it.  Don’t hold your breath.
    In short, at a time when our local communities and economies should be facing an optimistic turning point in the COVID-19 pandemic and fully making their own reopening decisions, they are faced with continuing to be at the arbitrary, non-scientific, non-sensible whims of this governor who continues to flail under several mounting investigations of his abuse of power. The continued mask mandate for children in schools is just the latest outrageous example. 
    Under current rules, the Legislature can rescind Cuomo’s pandemic emergency powers by approving a Concurrent Resolution. Senate and Assembly Republicans put forth a resolution to do just that, but the Democrat majorities ended the session without acting. In other words, they have left Governor Cuomo completely in control for the foreseeable future – even while this governor is scandal-scarred and facing multiple investigations.
    That’s an unthinkable abandonment of legislative responsibility. There was a need for flexible and swift executive action at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, when so much was unknown. But that time quickly passed.
    Since the onset of the pandemic over fifteen months ago, when the governor was first granted the emergency authorization, he has issued nearly 100 Executive Orders that have allowed him to unilaterally change hundreds of state laws, as well as implement rules and regulations, and make spending decisions, without legislative approval.
    Many of the governor’s actions have now gone well beyond the necessary scope of the COVID-19 response.  
    Over the past 15 months, since May 2020, the Senate GOP has advanced more than 50 motions on the Senate floor to execute a straight-out repeal of the governor’s emergency pandemic powers. Every single one of these Senate Republican motions was rejected by the Senate Democrat majority without one Democrat voting to end Cuomo’s tyrannical control.
    Endless executive orders have failed and keep failing New York’s local communities, families, economies, and workers. It’s unthinkable that the Albany Democrats will continue to let Governor Cuomo sit in Albany, exert total control, and issue directive after directive without any regard for legislative checks and balances, or local input. 
    This Legislature’s majorities ignored the most critical turning point of all, which would have been to go all-in on ending Cuomo’s unilateral powers, restore local decision-making, and get fully on board with a safe, practical, sensible, and badly needed reopening of our local communities and economies. 
  7. Senator Tom O'Mara
    Albany’s leaders left the Capitol late last week after shrugging off the enactment of a new state budget that’s already a week late.
    The holdup remains over several public policy discussions, including discovery reform, involuntary commitment of the severe mentally ill, and maybe a few others. In other words, non-budget policy discussions.
    Not the desperately needed economic and fiscal discussions that should be dominating this budget process.
    No discussions over high taxes, even though New York remains one of the overall highest-taxed states in America. Upstate United had this to say in a recent statement: “According to a newly released study from WalletHub, New York is ranked at the top of the list for having the highest individual income tax burden,  second highest overall tax burden, fourth highest in property tax burden and twenty second in sales and excise tax burden. While it may not come as much of a surprise to many New Yorkers that we are saddled with some of the highest taxes in the country, providing relief or prioritizing affordability continues to be more of a talking point than an action item for policymakers in Albany. Ironically, this analysis comes to us at the same time legislative leaders are in the process of negotiating a record-high state spending plan that is likely to exceed $250 billion.”
    No discussions over the ever-exploding costs of Medicaid and how to get it under control. From a recent Empire Center analysis and commentary: “Governor Hochul’s executive budget calls for the state share of Medicaid to increase by $6.4 billion or 17 percent – continuing a steep upward trend that she herself has called ‘unsustainable.’ That assessment is hard to dispute. If the governor’s budget is approved as written – with no additions by the Legislature – state Medicaid outlays in fiscal 2026 will rise to $44 billion, which is 60 percent larger than the $28 billion level she inherited just three years ago.” Despite this alarming growth, approximately three times the average rate of the previous ten years, the Empire Center concludes that the governor’s current plan for Medicaid moving forward “mainly just pumps more of the taxpayers’ money into an already expensive and dysfunctional status quo.”
    No discussions over relief for local businesses, local schools, and local economies from the longstanding burden of unfunded state mandates, including an unworkable all-electric school bus mandate that’s still on track to potentially be the hardest hit ever on our schools.
    No discussions over effectively addressing a staffing and safety crisis within state prisons following the strike-related firing of over 2,000 corrections officers. Instead of serious thinking about how to address this staffing shortage and the ongoing deterioration of prison safety, the sole answer from the Hochul administration so far is to call in the National  Guard, untrained for this purpose and at exorbitant cost, estimated to be four to five times more than the actual cost for corrections officers, and to begin implementing an accelerated early release plan to set more prisoners free.
    And no discussions over the number one question that all New Yorkers should be asking: Can New York taxpayers ever afford the rate of spending that has defined state government over the past six years under one-party, all-Democrat control?
    Because that’s where we’re headed again. That’s the fundamental question that keeps getting ignored.
    These Democrats are the biggest spenders in state history. If they enact the spending plan everyone expects they’re going to approve when they get around to it this year, since 2019 they will have increased spending by approximately $90 billion. By their own admission, it will result in a string of state budget deficits over the next three fiscal years totaling $6.5 billion in 2027, $9.8 billion in 2028, and $11 billion in 2029.
    In other words, they’re more than willing to keep on spending money that’s not there.
    Fundamentally -- and from any perspective at all of common sense -- it’s reckless. It’s out of control. It directs billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars to what many consider to be misguided, politically driven, and even frivolous actions and handouts.
    And to pay for it, again by their own admission, they go in search of a new or higher tax, the next fee, and other fiscal irresponsibility.
    Senator Tom O'Mara represents New York's 58th District which covers all of Chemung, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga and Yates counties, and a portion of Allegany County.
  8. Senator Tom O'Mara
    Early last week, when it became increasingly clear that Governor Hochul and the Legislature’s Democrat leaders were not going to stick around at the State Capitol to enact a budget now a month overdue, we renewed our call for desperately needed accountability in this process.
    While the governor stepped out on her own Friday night to announce a “conceptual” agreement with legislative leaders on a final budget, as of this writing it remains a Governor Hochul “take my word for it” budget. There’s no legislation for the public to review. 
    Keep in mind that the enactment of a new state budget is the most impactful action that state legislators take every year. It reaches into the pockets and the everyday lives of all New Yorkers. That will be especially true this year when Governor Hochul and Albany Democrats finally put the finishing touches on a new state budget pushing state spending to its highest level ever and, at the same time, including far-reaching, non-budget-related policy initiatives that many good government groups believe should not even be considered as part of the budget adoption process.
    Yet, negotiations go on entirely behind closed doors. That becomes especially troubling – and dangerous -- in this era of complete one-party control of state government where there is an unprecedented lack of legislative checks and balances. The public is kept in the dark like never before. We know that taxpayers will be shouldered with their heaviest-ever burden footing the bill for at least a nearly $230-billion spending plan, one of the world’s largest governmental budgets! We know that there will be tax and fee increases. We know that there will be new mandates. We know that debt will increase. We know that there will be winners and losers.
    And we know that it’s poised to include monumental policy actions like banning natural gas hookups in the construction of new homes and buildings by 2026, an even higher state minimum wage (a move that farmers, small business owners and others have been warning against, and rightly so) and some sort of attempt (will it even begin to go far enough?) to address the failed bail reform that continues to devastate public safety and security across this state.
    What we still do not know, however, with any specificity, is exactly how Governor Hochul and legislative Democrats intend to carry it all out – or, for that matter, what surprises are still in store.
    The bottom line is that we don’t know and that’s the point Senate and Assembly Republicans are making clear: Before any legislator votes on this year’s final budget, our constituents deserve to know what’s in it.
    Specifically, we called on Governor Hochul and legislative Democrats to reject the use of so-called “messages of necessity” once the budget legislation is printed and ready for a vote. The State Constitution includes a vital “aging” provision that essentially requires a three-day waiting period (commonly called “aging”) before legislation can receive a final vote. While three days is not nearly enough time in the context of a stack of budget legislation as thick as dictionaries, it at least gives individual legislators, the press, the public, and all interested parties the chance to review the plan’s details.
    However, a longstanding loophole in the law authorizes governors to issue a “message of necessity” to bypass this three-day waiting period and allow for an immediate vote on any piece of legislation once introduced.
    It’s time to bring this state’s budget adoption process out into the light of day. Fundamental checks and balances have effectively gone by the wayside in this state government. 
    This budget demands a full public airing and the appropriate time for review and debate, but that’s not where we are headed. It's a broken process that keeps producing bloated state budgets that taxpayers will never be able to afford.
  9. Senator Tom O'Mara
    The word on the street out of Albany is that Governor Hochul and the Democrat-led State Legislature could be on the doorstep of enacting a new state budget that’s already a month behind schedule.
    Yet that’s the point. It remains just a word on the street. Which means that whenever the governor and legislative leaders get around to finalizing a new budget, New Yorkers are still going to be left with a broken budget adoption process.
    It’s a process that every step of the way keeps the public in the dark about fundamental decisions on this state’s short- and long-term future. It’s a process in desperate need of accountability.
    As the ranking member on the Senate Finance committee, that’s the point I’ve been making over the past several weeks since April 1, when a final 2025-2026 state budget was supposed to be in place. While New Yorkers may hear and read about a “conceptual agreement” out of Albany, there’s never any concrete legislation for the public to review beforehand. It’s always a “take my word for it” deal before the taxpayers get handed the bill for yet another unaffordable state spending plan.
    Keep in mind that the enactment of a new state budget is the most impactful action that state legislators take every year. It reaches into the pockets and the everyday lives of all New Yorkers. That will be especially true this year when Governor Hochul and Albany Democrats put the finishing touches on a budget pushing spending to its highest level in state history and one that will once again include far-reaching, non-budget policy initiatives that many good government groups believe should not even be considered as part of the budget adoption process.
    Negotiations take place entirely behind closed doors. That becomes especially troubling – and dangerous -- in this era of complete one-party control of New York government where there is an unprecedented lack of legislative checks and balances. The public is kept in the dark like never before. We know that taxpayers will soon be shouldered with their heaviest-ever burden for a nearly $260-billion spending plan. We know it will be one of the world’s largest governmental budgets! We know that there will be tax and fee increases, and new mandates and debt obligations. We know there will be winners and losers.
    New Yorkers just don’t know the details. New Yorkers still do not know, with any specifics, exactly how Governor Hochul and legislative Democrats intend to carry it all out – or, for that matter, what surprises are still in store.
    The bottom line is that New Yorkers don’t know, and they should. Our Senate and Assembly Republican conferences have been making this point throughout the past several budget adoption cycles that have headed this state in the wrong direction, according to most New Yorkers: Before we take the votes on a final budget, our constituents deserve to know what’s in it.  They deserve to know more than a word on the street.
    Specifically, we have continually called on Governor Hochul and legislative Democrats to reject the use of so-called “messages of necessity” once the budget legislation is printed and ready for a vote. The State Constitution includes a vital “aging” provision that essentially requires a three-day waiting period (commonly called “aging”) before legislation can receive a final vote. While three days is not nearly enough time in the context of a stack of budget legislation as thick as dictionaries, it at least gives individual legislators, the press, the public, and all interested parties the chance to review the plan’s details.
    However, a longstanding loophole in the law authorizes governors to issue a “message of necessity” to bypass this three-day waiting period and allow for an immediate vote on any piece of legislation once it’s introduced.
    It’s time to bring this state’s budget adoption process into the modern day, especially at this time when one-party control keeps on producing skyrocketing state spending plans that are increasingly chock-full of policy initiatives that should, for accountability’s sake, be given stand-alone consideration.
    Fundamental checks and balances have effectively been thrown out in this state government. Governor Hochul and the Legislature's Democrat majorities go on working behind closed doors to allocate state taxpayer dollars and set in motion far-reaching public policies impacting our local citizens, communities, and economies in consequential ways.
    The state budget demands a full public airing and the appropriate time for review and debate, but that’s never what we get. It's a broken process that blindfolds the public and keeps producing bloated state budgets that taxpayers will never be able to afford.
    Senator Tom O'Mara represents New York's 58th District which covers all of Chemung, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga and Yates counties, and a portion of Allegany County.
  10. Senator Tom O'Mara
    Not that we needed another poll to tell us that New York State is getting increasingly more unaffordable, but recent statewide polling from the Siena Research Institute offers a telling look at the state of affordability in New York.
    It’s a concern, of course, that many of my legislative colleagues and I have steadfastly pinpointed throughout the past few years as New Yorkers have consistently let it be known that the prohibitive cost of living in this state is driving them away.
    The truth remains that citizens across the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes regions I represent, and statewide, are worried about making ends meet. They see this state becoming less affordable, less free, less economically competitive, less responsible, and far less hopeful for the future. While many Albany Democrats may acknowledge that New York State has an affordability crisis causing the exodus of so many of our citizens to more affordable states – remember that we lead America in population loss – they nevertheless remain committed to out-of-control spending, high taxes, exorbitant costs for everything under the sun, and burdensome regulations and unfunded state mandates.
    New York State’s current direction is not sustainable. While excessive costs cannot be brought under control solely through actions out of Albany, state government can and should be taking every step possible to ease the burden.
    Keep in mind that fiscal watchdogs have already projected significant state budget deficits throughout the foreseeable future and, inevitability, footing the bill of budget deficits always falls on taxpayers.
    We need to rescue New York and that can begin by restoring the right priorities to turn things around, rebuild stronger and safer communities, and work toward a more responsible and sustainable future for middle-class communities, families, workers, businesses, industries, and taxpayers.
    From the latest Siena poll:
    Seventy-five percent of state residents report that the amount of money they spend on groceries is having either a very serious or somewhat serious impact on their finances.  Seven in ten New Yorkers say that housing costs are having a very serious or somewhat serious impact on their financial condition. Upwards of sixty percent of state residents say that their utility costs are having at least a somewhat serious impact on their finances. And that other monthly expenses including the cost of cell phones and entertainment services including internet and cable are having a very or somewhat serious impact on their financial condition. It simply reaffirms the need for a legislative agenda pushed by our Senate Republican Conference throughout 2024, “New Hope for the Empire State,” to focus on policies being ignored in Albany that prioritize economic growth and job creation, tax relief and regulatory reform, and many other affordability initiatives.
    The “New Hope for New York” agenda is a comprehensive plan to ease the financial burden on middle-class families and small business owners, lower costs and improve affordability, and restore the quality of life in communities statewide. The plan calls for numerous actions including:
    enacting a state spending cap; rejecting and eliminating tax increases and unfunded state mandates on local governments and school districts; providing across-the-board tax relief; rejecting extreme, mandated climate proposals; increasing affordable housing options; making child care more accessible and affordable; improving the state’s business climate by protecting small businesses and farms by reducing regulations, and lowering taxes and unfair costs. We face an affordability crisis. We face a border crisis. Law and order remains in free fall. New York, on its current path, fails to produce hope for a long-term, sustainable future for communities and families, businesses and industries, or taxpayers and workers.
     
    Senator Tom O'Mara represents New York's 58th District which covers all of Chemung, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga and Yates counties, and a portion of Allegany County.

  11. Senator Tom O'Mara
    Not long ago, I wrote about a newly proposed state mandate causing yet more consternation out of Albany under which the state Fire Prevention and Building Code Council would require automatic sprinkler systems in every new home construction. The New York State Builders Association (NYSBA) estimates the mandate would increase the cost of building a home by up to $20,000-$30,000 at a time when skyrocketing construction costs already drive up historically prohibitive costs for homebuyers.
    When this proposed mandate first came to light, I wondered what Albany Democrats could possibly be thinking in a state that already ranks as one of the most unaffordable states in America. What can they be thinking in a state where, for as long as I've been in office, Albany's appetite for imposing unfunded state mandates has been insatiable and where the consequences are now resulting in nothing short of a mass exodus from New York, the largest population loss of any state in the nation.
    In fact, New York State received its worst ranking in a decade in U-Haul's recently released annual migration report. It'll cost you four times as much to rent a one way U-Haul truck from Upstate NY to South Carolina than it does to go from South Carolina to New York.
    At last week’s state budget hearing on local government, we were again left thinking, What are Albany Democrats thinking? We were reminded that unfunded state mandates continue to be an enormous burden on affordability in New York State.
    It’s an old story out of Albany.
    One of the panels we convened at last week’s hearing consisted of representatives of the New York State Association of Counties (NYSAC), the Association of Towns of New York State, and the New York State Conference of Mayors. The talk inevitably turned to the impact of unfunded state mandates on local governments and property taxpayers.
    NYSAC reminded us that the total amount of unfunded mandates that counties currently carry is $14 billion, with the local share of Medicaid accounting for approximately $8 billion of that total amount. County costs for Medicaid have grown from $20 million in 1966, when the program was created, to nearly $8 billion today. And there’s no end in sight.
    According to NYSAC, up to 80 percent of a county’s total budget can be dedicated to paying for state and federal mandates. Eighty percent. These mandates run the gamut from Medicaid to public assistance for adults and families, indigent criminal defense legal services, child welfare, preschool special education and numerous others (read more in NYSAC’s report, “The State of State Mandates,” on the NYSAC website: https://www.nysac.org/issues/mandates/).  Keep in mind that it’s not just counties that are impacted, it extends to cities, towns, and school districts too.
    At last week’s hearing, I directly asked if any future mandate relief provided by the state would be met by counties, dollar for dollar, with property tax reductions. The answer was yes. That’s a significant commitment. It would be life-changing for property taxpayers and it’s time for this Legislature to finally take it more seriously.
    For as long as I’ve been serving, and long before that, many of us have railed against Albany’s appetite for continually imposing unfunded state mandates on localities and school districts – in other words, on local property taxpayers -- to pay for programs and services being dictated out of Albany. It’s been unfair, it’s been wrong, and it’s been egregious – and we can never truly transform the state-local partnership and finally make it work in favor of local property taxpayers, like it should, until we address it.
    In 2011, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo made it his top priority to enact a local property tax cap. As part of that push, he made a promise to localities and school districts to roll back one of the nation’s heaviest burdens of unfunded state mandates. That promise was never kept. It was ignored and it has continued to undermine the ultimate purpose of the tax cap, which was to reduce property taxes, not just limit their growth.
    We can’t keep turning our backs on the fact that more needs to be done. Mandate relief has to become a state priority. Localities and school districts facing tough fiscal challenges still have their hands tied by too many unfunded state mandates and yet Albany just keeps loading on more. As I’ve highlighted in this column constantly over the past several years, right now Governor Hochul and the Democrat legislative majorities in charge of this state have a barrel full of energy mandates hitting ratepayers’ monthly utility bills and many more are in the pipeline, including an all-electric school bus mandate that school districts warn could be the heaviest unfunded mandate hit that they have ever faced.
    If the spending increases Governor Hochul has proposed for Medicaid in her 2025-26 proposed budget are enacted, state Medicaid spending will have increased by nearly 60 percent across the four budgets she has overseen as the governor. As of last September, nearly 45% of the state’s population was enrolled in some form of state-sponsored Medicaid. Forty-five percent, or nearly eight million New Yorkers.
    This state under one-party control just keeps moving in the wrong direction, especially for taxpayers.
     
    Senator Tom O'Mara represents New York's 58th District which covers all of Chemung, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga and Yates counties, and a portion of Allegany County.
  12. Senator Tom O'Mara
    Here we go again.
    The ink on the new state budget is barely dry and the Albany Democrats are already eyeing their next tax hike opportunities
    That’s right. New York’s out-of-control Democrat supermajorities just enacted a $212-billion state budget that blew through a one-time $13-billion windfall of federal aid, increased state government spending by $18 billion, and raised taxes by nearly five billion dollars.
    Already, it’s not enough for them.
    Already, it’s being made clear that we’re in for an unending search for more tax dollars to afford more spending and every taxpayer will pay the price.
    Their latest target includes a newly proposed 55-cents-per-gallon hike in the state tax on gasoline to help generate revenue to implement a radical, unsustainable, impractical climate change agenda. Specifically, the legislation (S4264/A6967), known as the “Climate and Community Investment Act,” calls for accelerated state-level actions to achieve broad and far-reaching climate change policies. It includes the 55-cents-per-gallon increase in the gas tax as well as increased taxes on heating oil, propane, and natural gas, which is estimated to increase home heating fuel costs by 26%.
    In short, the legislation would implement regressive taxes that would leave lower- and middle-income families and workers, motorists, truckers, farmers, manufacturers and other industries, and seniors among the hardest hit. Especially across Upstate New York.  
    According to the Tax Foundation, New York currently has the 7th highest gas tax in the country, at 43.12 centers per gallon withCalifornia currently the highest at 62.47 cents per gallon. This legislation would raise New York’s tax to 98.12 cents per gallon, an increase of more than 127 percent, and would make New York’s gas tax more than 57 percent higher than any other state.  
    New York’s business tax climate has long been noted by the Tax Foundation as one of the nation’s worst. 
    Greg Biryla, Senior State Director of the National Federation of Independent Business of New York (NFIB of NY), recently said, “COVID-19 continues to present unimaginable and unprecedented challenges for New York’s local businesses and job creators…Albany should be concentrating all its efforts on identifying policies and solutions to support and sustain those small businesses still hanging on rather than imposing new burdens or exploring new ways to increase costs. Significantly higher taxes on gasoline, transportation, and heating fuel is the wrong idea at the worst possible time.”
    The just-released Census numbers made it clear, once again, that the exodus from New York remains well underway and because of it, we will, among other negative consequences, lose one Congressional seat next year.
    Different pundits can hem and haw about why -- and they are -- but clearly the most significant fact it’s underway is because of New York State government policies.
    Governor Andrew Cuomo and the Legislature’s Democratic supermajorities may well have state government under lock and key at the moment. They can boast all they want about how the voters have spoken and willingly, according to them, chosen to live under one-party, largely downstate Democratic control.
    Many New Yorkers, however, continue to vote with their feet. They are leaving New York because of our high cost of living, high taxes, out-of-control spending, oppressive business tax climate, and, especially now, because they see a scandal-scarred state government in full pursuit of an out-of-touch, pie-in-the-sky, unsustainable, dangerous, and disastrous so-called progressive agenda.
    Earlier this year, the well-respected Upstate advocacy organization, Upstate United (previously known as Unshackle Upstate), once again sounded the alarm on the tax burden.
    Upstate United Executive Director Justin Wilcox said, “As special interests keep calling on Albany to raise taxes, our organization is committed to fighting for much-needed tax relief. Overburdened taxpayers continue to flee New York due, in part, to the state’s extraordinary tax burden. Returning to the days of massive tax hikes and bloated budgets isn’t progressive, it’s problematic.”
    It’s an alarm sounding louder than ever.
     
  13. Senator Tom O'Mara
    I hope this week’s column finds you and your families and friends, and communities and neighbors, doing well and doing your best to have a memorable and meaningful holiday season.
    Approaching the start of another new year in New York State government, it’s of course time to start looking ahead to the debates and decisions that always await the Governor and the Legislature – and there are many difficult challenges and crises facing all of us on education, economic development, energy and environmental conservation, health care, fiscal policies, immigration, infrastructure, public safety and security, and so many others.
    Here at home, the beginning of 2025 arrives during what continues to be a long road back to community and economic renewal across the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes regions. As always, this hoped-for revitalization will continue to rely on strong regional teamwork in pursuit of the goals and priorities we share. The experience we have gained and the bonds we have cemented over the past several difficult, unexpected, and unprecedented years will continue to serve us well in the year ahead. This teamwork will remain fundamental to our success and our ability to keep pushing forward.
    Nevertheless, once again, we simply need a state government that’s focused on addressing the right priorities.
    Throughout the past two years, I have enjoyed and welcomed the opportunity to represent the newly redefined (as a result of legislative redistricting in 2022) 58th Senate District encompassing all of Chemung, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga, and Yates counties, and the eastern portion of Allegany County (the towns of Alfred, Almond, Amity, Andover, Birdsall, Burns, Grove, Independence, Scio, Ward, Wellsville, and Willing). It is one of New York’s geographically largest legislative districts, however as I’ve said many times before, the communities and citizens comprising the 58th District share common strengths and fundamental goals and I have appreciated working with so many of you to be a strong voice in Albany – especially to keep fighting to secure our priorities for affordability, opportunity, and stronger and safer communities.
    On the economic front of this ongoing effort to reclaim solid ground, we need the Hochul administration and government as a whole out of Albany to better recognize that our regional revitalization can and must move forward with greater clarity, common sense, and fairness. Many of us across the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes, as well as all over Upstate New York -- government officials, business owners, families, taxpayers, and workers alike – continue to believe this revitalization can and should be accomplished more effectively and rapidly.
    In 2025, we will need to redouble our emphasis on the need for fairness and affordability. I’ve had this discussion with many local leaders and citizens. We will continue pushing the administration and legislative leaders (who undeniably approach governing New York from a decidedly downstate, New York City-based perspective) to recognize specific regional concerns and suggestions -- and the need for sensible compromises and effective, safe resolutions. State government needs to get away from its one-size-fits-all mentality.
    There is enormous work facing us to fix what’s broken and keep providing fundamental assistance. On the legislative front, we must continue to hear the voices of small business, farming, tourism, manufacturing, and the other foundations of our local economies. Moving forward, these ongoing discussions, on a bipartisan basis, will become increasingly critical. As I have also said repeatedly, one way we stay together is by staying informed.
    Finally, as we move through these last few weeks of 2024, weeks which traditionally serve as centerpieces of reflection on the past year, we do well to recall our gratitude to everyone throughout the public and private sectors providing diligent outreach and services. Because of these incredible and inspiring efforts, local citizens and communities have been able to persevere, remain hopeful, move forward, and keep planning for a better future.
    Let’s all keep doing our part. These local commitments will remain the lifelines of hope at the beginning of the coming New Year, as well as the foundation of strength that always has and always will keep seeing us through.
    My very best wishes to you and your families, friends, and neighbors throughout this holiday season, and a safe, healthy, and successful New Year.
     
    Senator Tom O'Mara represents New York's 58th District which covers all of Chemung, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga and Yates counties, and a portion of Allegany County
  14. Senator Tom O'Mara
    Finally.
    Heading toward the beginning of a new year, the ongoing distribution of more widespread COVID-19 vaccinations appears to be the long-awaited mile marker on this incredibly long and hard road back to public health and economic renewal.
    First and foremost, make no mistake that reaching this point of potential renewal is the product of personal responsibility, and enormous perseverance and sacrifice on the part of so many.
    Every single one of you who have heard the public health guidelines, and then honored them, made the difference. This public health emergency has called for all hands on deck and you have responded. 
    Keep holding the line and listening to our local public health departments.
    Public health has been and remains the top priority because it is paramount to being able to fully attack the economic crisis that has and is inflicting enormous pain and upheaval.
    A true reopening will be the product of strong regional teamwork on public outreach and care. This teamwork will remain fundamental to our success throughout the weeks and months ahead. The experience gained and the bonds cemented over the past ten months will continue to serve us well. 
    Now we need to keep pushing forward, reopening more sectors of local economies, and getting more workers back on the job as soon as possible. 
    On the economic front of this battle to reclaim and regain solid ground in our lives, we will need the Cuomo administration to better recognize that our regional reopening can and must move forward with greater clarity, common sense, and fairness. 
    Many of us here in the region – government officials, business owners, and workers alike -- believe this reopening process can be accomplished more effectively and rapidly without jeopardizing public health. Guidelines that may be absolutely necessary in downstate regions, for example, shouldn’t be unreasonably applied upstate.
    We will need to redouble our emphasis on this need for fairness. I’ve had this discussion with many local leaders and citizens. We will continue pushing the administration to recognize specific regional concerns and suggestions – and the need for sensible compromises and effective, safe resolutions. 
    There is enormous work facing us to fix what’s broken and keep providing fundamental assistance. On the legislative front, we must continue to hear the voices of small business, farming, tourism, manufacturing and other foundations of local economies.
    Coming out of this COVID-19 response and shutdown, these ongoing discussions, on a bipartisan basis, will become increasingly critical.
    Since the beginning of the state shutdown in mid-March, a “One-Stop” webpage on omara.nysenate.gov has provided, in one place, access to a wide range of information and resources from across the spectrum of federal, state, and local agencies and organizations. This page will remain available as new guidelines, recommendations, and updates are continually issued.
    Pay attention to them. As I have said repeatedly throughout these long months, one way we stay together is by staying informed.  
    Finally, as we begin this week that has traditionally had as its centerpiece a reflection on the year past, we focus on this: Thank You.
    A single list here can never begin to cover them all, but let’s keep foremost in our hearts and minds and prayers the doctors and nurses, all health care workers and first responders, public health departments, food banks, mail carriers, police officers, bus drivers and grocery store workers, transportation and sanitation crews, delivery drivers, long-haul truckers, service organizations, business leaders, bank and credit union employees, educators and librarians, farmers, government officials at every level, the men and women of our military, and an absolute army of other essential employees, neighbors, and, of course, incredibly selfless volunteers — throughout the public and private sectors – providing diligent public outreach, every day and every night.
    Only because of these incredible and inspiring efforts have local communities been able to persevere, stay together, remain hopeful, move forward, and keep planning for better days. 
    They remain the rays of hope at the beginning of a New Year, the silver lining of strength that has and will keep seeing us through.
    For all of them, let’s all keep doing our part. Thank you, and may you and your families, friends, and neighbors be well and stay safe.
     
  15. Senator Tom O'Mara
    Above all else this week, I hope that this column will find you and your families, friends, and neighbors well and doing your best to have a memorable and meaningful holiday season. 
    Approaching the start of another new year in New York State government, we could focus on looking ahead to the debates that always await the governor and legislators in ordinary times -- traditionally difficult challenges on education, economic development, environmental protection, fiscal policies, infrastructure, public safety and security, and so many more. 
    But these remain far from ordinary times. Consequently, the beginning of 2023 will arrive during what continues to be an incredibly long and hard road back to community and economic renewal. As always, this hoped-for revitalization will continue to hinge on strong regional teamwork on the goals and the priorities we share across the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes regions. The experience we have gained and the bonds we have cemented over the past few difficult, unexpected, unprecedented years will continue to serve us well in 2023. This teamwork will remain fundamental to our success throughout the year ahead. We need to keep pushing forward. We need to get more and more sectors of local economies moving again. We need to keep getting more and more workers back on the job as soon as possible. 
    And we need a state government that’s focused on addressing the right priorities. 
    At the start of the New Year, I look forward to beginning my representation of the newly redefined (as a result of redistricting) 58th Senate District. This redefined district continues to include the core of the district I have represented since 2011 – Chemung, Schuyler, Steuben, and Yates counties – with the addition of Seneca and Tioga counties, and a part of Allegany County. It is one of New York’s geographically largest legislative districts. Nevertheless, the communities and citizens comprising the 58th District harbor common strengths and share fundamental goals, and I look forward to working with all of you to be a strong voice in Albany – and to keep fighting to secure our priorities for stronger and safer communities. 
    On the economic front of this ongoing battle to reclaim solid ground across our region and within individual communities, we will need the Hochul administration to better recognize that our regional revitalization can and must move forward with greater clarity, common sense, and fairness. Many of us across the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes regions -- government officials, business owners, and workers and families alike – continue to believe this revitalization can and should be accomplished more effectively and rapidly. 
    In 2023, we will need to redouble our emphasis on the need for fairness. I’ve had this discussion with many local leaders and citizens. We will continue pushing the administration to recognize specific regional concerns and suggestions -- and the need for sensible compromises and effective, safe resolutions. 
    There is enormous work facing us to fix what’s broken and keep providing fundamental assistance. On the legislative front, we must continue to hear the voices of small business, farming, tourism, manufacturing, and other foundations of local economies. Moving forward, these ongoing discussions, on a bipartisan basis, will become increasingly critical. As I have said repeatedly, one way we stay together is by staying informed. 
    Finally, as we continue this week that has traditionally had as its centerpiece a reflection on the year past, we still focus on this: Thank You. 
    Thank you to everyone throughout the public and private sectors providing diligent public outreach and service. Because of these incredible and inspiring efforts, local citizens and communities have been able to persevere, stay together, remain hopeful, move forward, and keep planning for better days. Let’s all keep doing our part. These will remain the rays of hope at the beginning of the New Year, the silver lining of strength that has and will keep seeing us through. 
    Happy New Year. 
  16. Senator Tom O'Mara
    Four years ago, when then-Governor Andrew Cuomo and the Democrat majorities in the Senate and Assembly enacted what’s known as the “Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act” (CLCPA), many of us started warning that Albany Democrats are pushing ahead with a radical agenda of energy mandates that ignores the cost to all New Yorkers. 
    New York State has been a leader in clean energy and reducing emissions and we should continue our advancement. Here's just a few facts highlighting that we lead in these efforts: 
      • New York State consumes less total energy per capita than all but two other states;  
      • New York State’s per capita energy consumption for the transportation sector is the lowest in the nation; 
     • In 2020, New York State’s per-capita, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions were lower than those of any other state. However, New York State's energy-related CO² emissions have since increased about 24% due to the 2021 closing of the Indian Point nuclear plant - a glaring example of the lack of foresight and rationality in New York's energy plan.  
    Further, as is, our state emissions account for only 0.4% of total global emissions. In other words, even if we get to zero, at astronomical expense and devastation to New York's economy, we will have zero impact on global climate. 
    Governor Hochul took the reins from Cuomo and remained all-in. The trouble has been that their plan never included a straightforward cost-benefit analysis of its feasibility, affordability, or reliability. And up to now, what New Yorkers have been left facing are mountainous costs and dire consequences.  
    For their part, the governor and her top energy officials have simply denied it. They have insisted over and over that the benefits would far outweigh costs. That was their story and they stuck to it for the better part of four years – until a week or so ago when, suddenly, it was like the lights came back on in Albany. The word was out that the governor wanted to revise a key provision of the original CLCPA, one that will directly reduce the plan’s cost of implementation.  
    The governor finally focused on the fact that New York is currently one of only two governmental entities worldwide utilizing an irrational and unfeasible accounting metric as the basis for examining the effect of carbon emissions and determining the timeline for actions to address it. Maryland is the only other state to have enacted a climate law using this metric. All other states, as well as nations and countries undertaking emissions reduction efforts, base their actions on a standard, internationally accepted, science-based accounting metric. 
    On April 3, in an opinion article published by the USA Today Network, the co-chairs of New York’s Climate Action Council, Basil Seggos, Commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, and Doreen Harris, President and CEO of the NYS Energy Research and Development Authority, signaled a dramatic change in the administration’s thinking. 
    “When the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act was passed in 2019, it included a way of counting New York’s emissions that differs from the scientific standard used by nearly every other state and country in the world. In addition, NO COST ANALYSIS WAS COMPLETED (emphasis mine) at that time, and as we all know, the economic landscape has changed dramatically since 2019,” Seggos and Harris wrote. “The reality is that we are advancing this transformation to fight climate change at a time in which many New Yorkers are struggling financially and economically. Now, under Hochul's direction, we are taking a close look at consumer cost impacts to ensure we will reach our climate goals while protecting New Yorkers. As it stands today, the climate act’s emissions accounting method is certain to be a major driver of future costs for New York families (emphasis mine).” 
    In a subsequent Capital Tonight television interview, Seggos also said that the plan, as currently constructed, will impose extraordinary costs across the board on New Yorkers, including causing home heating costs to increase by 80% and gasoline prices will rise by 62 cents per gallon. Yes, you read that right: home heating cost increases by 80% and gas prices higher by 62 cents per gallon under the current plan. 
    Finally recognizing this, the chairs of the Senate and Assembly Energy Committees quickly introduced legislation (S.6030/A.6039) that would make the change to the internationally accepted accounting metric. 
    Initial reports were that the governor and legislative supporters wanted the accounting metric changed as part of this year’s budget. By the end of the week, inexplicably but not surprisingly for this administration, the governor quickly backed off making it a budget priority in the face of mounting pushback from staunch supporters of the current plan and their legislative allies.  
    Nevertheless, the stunning change of thinking remains: The Hochul administration, and some top legislative Democrats, finally acknowledge that, left as is, the CLCPA will cost everyday New Yorkers and their families far too much on everything, upend lives, and devastate local businesses and economies. They finally recognize that the current plan holds massive consequences, on so many levels, and that it’s time to pump the brakes on an out-of-control climate strategy that New Yorkers don’t want, can’t afford, and, most importantly, know won’t make a bit of difference for the climate in this state, the nation, or anywhere around the world. 
    From day one, that is what Senate and Assembly Republicans have been saying. Far too many New Yorkers have been kept in the dark about these potential costs and consequences, largely because Governor Hochul and her top aides either did not truly know or really didn’t want to shine any light on it. Now that they have, however, it remains more important than ever for more citizens, communities, businesses, families, and workers to fully understand where New York’s energy future is headed and to demand a desperately needed rethinking and slowing down of this process. 
  17. Senator Tom O'Mara
    To summarize where we stand in our months-long effort to better understand the tragedy that is New York’s COVID-19 nursing home crisis -- and the Cuomo administration’s response to it – we now have a report from the state attorney general.
    It arrived last week after months and months of repeated requests -- from legislators (including myself), Democrat and Republican, reporters, watchdog groups, and from family members who have lost loved ones in nursing homes – for the most basic of information from the governor’s office.
    Prior to AG’s report, for example, we could not get a straight answer from Governor Cuomo, state Health Commissioner Howard Zucker, or any other top Cuomo administration official on even the most straightforward question: How many COVID-19 deaths have there been in nursing home facilities and among those transferred from nursing homes who then died in hospitals?
    For months, the Cuomo administration constantly pointed to its own number (the most recent being 8,677) and then utilized that number in daily briefings and elsewhere to tout New York State’s admirable standing in this regard in comparison to other states around the nation.
    Except that was false. Many of us long suspected that the number was much higher, that it did not include the number of nursing home residents who were transferred from a nursing facility to a hospital and died there. When we asked the administration to provide that fuller number – including at a joint Senate-Assembly hearing last August – the answer was: We’re working on it. It went on like this for month after month after month.
    Until last week. The AG’s report last Thursday blew the lid off the Cuomo administration stonewalling by revealing that the administration has been undercounting COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes by as much as 50 percent. According to the AG’s numbers, that means the total number of nursing homes deaths is not the governor’s 8,677, but something closer to 13,000.
    And lo and behold, later on the very same day the AG’s report was released, the state produced new data confirming, in fact, that the preliminary total number of confirmed and presumed COVID deaths in nursing facilities and among nursing home residents who died after being transferred to a hospital was 12,743, or approximately 46 percent higher.
    Why was the Cuomo administration able to suddenly produce, within hours, what many of us have been requesting for months?
    Why did it take this outside report, which generated national attention, to finally get the governor to sit up straight?
    Why was he couching the most basic facts on this tragedy for so long?
    And, of course, what else is there that we still don’t know, but should know? Is it coincidence that the governor finally releases stats the very same day remarkably consistent with the AG’s findings?  Is the AG’s report the full picture? Or is it an attempt to throw the dogs off the scent, so to speak?
    The governor, in a follow-up press briefing last Friday, downplayed the report’s significance, said only “partisan politics” is behind any criticism of the state’s handling of the COVID-19 response in nursing homes, that New York is no different than any other state (still even better than most states, according to him), that the federal government was negligent, and so on.
    The bottom line is that thanks to the AG’s report, we finally have a clear starting line. It is critical to know how many have died and where in order to better understand the why and how part of this tragedy that is going to help us put in place the policies that could prevent it from ever happening again.
    That’s the purpose of accountability and transparency: better and stronger responses for the future.
    This has been a tragedy and not just in New York State, we know that. The COVID-19 toll on the elderly, everywhere, is the great horror and the terrible sadness of this pandemic – which makes it all the more vital that we understand what has happened as fully as we possibly can, as straightforwardly as it takes, and with as much toughness as it demands.
    It has been terrible everywhere and that reality includes the fact that it has been horrific here in New York State – much worse than Governor Cuomo was touting for months on end, for still unknown reasons.
    The attorney general’s report does not mark the end of this inquiry.
    It marks an important beginning.
     
  18. Senator Tom O'Mara
    It was just over a year ago, shortly after the enactment of a state budget that paid Albany Democrat lip service to the need to end New York’s failed and dangerous bail reform experiment, when Governor Hochul declared, “We are done with bail. We accomplished what we needed to do.”
    Since then, it sure has looked like the governor meant what she said. She and the Legislature’s Democrat majorities have done nothing to fix a continually failing and exceedingly dangerous law that they put in place and that has turned the criminal justice system in this state upside down.
    The latest exhibit of their failure comes out of western New York in Allegany County, where I represent a portion of the eastern half of the county. Recently, following a year-long investigation and surveillance operation of an illegal drug operation in a former factory in the small town of Cuba, local and state law enforcement executed a drug bust valued at over $4 million.
    According to a former member of the Southern Tier Regional Drug Task Force who was involved, it stands as the largest drug bust ever in Allegany County and one of the top three in Southern Tier history.
    Police made two arrests. According to news reports, the two individuals were both charged with felony first-degree possession of cannabis, criminal possession of a weapon, and criminal possession of a controlled substance. One of those arrested was an illegal immigrant and was turned over to federal authorities. The second perpetrator, who in addition to the drug and weapons offenses was also charged with resisting arrest, was arraigned in Allegany County court and “released with tickets.”
    That’s right, under Albany Democrat bail reform, he could not be kept behind bars. Once again we’re reminded that an outrageous and dangerous public policy currently defines criminal justice in New York State.
    Law enforcement in Allegany County did not hide their frustration at the current system and they shouldn’t. Their testimony from the front lines speaks volumes.
    Cuba Police Chief Dustin Burch said, “We worked on this case for 12 months. I don’t like to play politics, but there is a lot of manpower in this here, a lot of overtime and now, there is a lot of frustration. There is a resisting arrest charge here. We have 50 percent or more of people resisting us when we make arrests. We do all this work, we potentially get hurt, and since bail reform happened, they get out. We were here from 3 a.m. until well into the night. We were subjected to the conditions inside these buildings, the resisting (incident) and then (the suspect) gets released.”
    Allegany County District Attorney Ian Jones added, “It’s important to note we have a lot of charges here and high-level charges but not high enough to fall into our new bail laws. It has to be an A1 felony, which operates as a major drug trafficker and it’s very hard to prove. You have to prove the drugs are moving and the money coming in and out for 12 years. I think this highlights yet another failure of our bail reform. Here we have arguably the largest drug bust in the history of this county, yet it’s still not good enough to meet our new bail rules, so unfortunately, no bail rules were set.”
    The Allegany County case is a stark reminder that Albany Democrats remain more than satisfied with the status quo that keeps giving away streets and neighborhoods in every region of New York to the chaos and violence of their “no consequences” approach to law and order.
    Contrary to their belief, we are not “done with bail.” We’re not. We can’t be. It continues to put local law enforcement and local communities at risk.
    Once again, Chief Burch stated what was at stake in the Allegany County operation, “It’s important because (the drugs seized) is what is being funneled into our school systems and a lot of younger kids are getting their hands on it.”
    Albany Democrat bail reform remains a failed public policy that just keeps waiting for the next victim. Failed bail reform remains the law of the land. The criminals in this society know it. The criminals know that Albany Democrats have their back. An overriding policy of no consequences for far too many bad actors remains in place.
    A climate of chaos over security reigns supreme in far too many places.
    “We have accomplished what we needed to do,” Governor Hochul said back in May of 2023.
    No, we have not. Innocent, hard-working, law-abiding, responsible New Yorkers remain at risk.
     
    Senator Tom O'Mara represents New York's 58th District which covers all of Chemung, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga and Yates counties, and a portion of Allegany County.
  19. Senator Tom O'Mara
    The 2021-2022 state budget adoption process marks my first as the Ranking Member on the Senate Finance Committee. It’s shaping up as one of the most consequential state budgets New York has ever faced.
    After a year when the COVID-19 pandemic has turned everything upside down, the choices made and the direction charted in this new budget could be transformational for the future of local communities, economies and taxpayers.
    In my view, here’s the fundamental question: Will it be transformational in some long-overdue, positive sense, or will it end up compounding the crises that have long stood in the way of a true turnaround in this state?
    The Legislature’s fiscal committees -- Senate Finance, and Assembly Ways and Means -- once again take the lead this year in examining Governor Cuomo’s just-released budget plan. Beginning this week and continuing through February 23, committee members will hear testimony from state agency heads, local leaders, public interest groups, and other organizations and advocates to get a stronger sense, in detail, of how the executive’s proposed strategy would impact specific programs, services, communities, employers, not-for-profit service providers, economies, taxpayers and much more. 
    What we hear and what we learn over the course of these 13 public hearings sets the stage for final negotiations on a new state budget.
    Last week, after legislators first received Governor Cuomo’s roughly $193-billion spending plan, my first reaction was a warning – a warning that the governor is charting a course for New York that could leave a future generation of state and local taxpayers holding a hefty bill for a questionable agenda of overspending.
    For starters, to achieve his hoped-for budget this year Governor Cuomo counts on New York receiving $15 billion in federal funding in the next COVID-19 stimulus package. In what can only be called one of the most bizarre moves ever by any New York Stategovernor, Governor Cuomo plans to sue the federal government if he doesn’t get it.
    Nevertheless, if New York does receive a $15-billion federal bailout, this governor intends to just go ahead and spend it. Keep in mind that any federal funding will be a one-time, non-recurring infusion of cash. It will be here and gone back out the door as quick as the governor can sign the spending authorizations. Make no mistake, however, the spending done now on grand new programs or big new projects (mainly downstate-oriented in the governor’s plan, by the way) will incur costs that will remain as the responsibility of taxpayers long after this governor has left the scene.
    We are staring at another year of ignoring the fiscal warning signs and throwing caution to the wind at the worst possible time, instead of re-setting the unsustainable direction New York State keeps heading.
    Under Governor Cuomo’s plan as it stands, future New Yorkers could be left footing an outrageous bill for this governor’s and this Legislature’s overspending and overtaxing.   
    That’s my starting point.
    Details on the governor’s budget proposal are available on the state Division of the Budget (DOB) website, www.budget.ny.gov.
    The Legislature’s fiscal hearings start this week with specific examinations of the governor’s proposed plans for transportation, environmental conservation, elementary education and housing. The schedule of virtual hearings and live streams can be found at: https://www.nysenate.gov/events (video archives of all the hearings will also be located here). The hearings can also be viewed on the Legislative Cable Channel on most local cable systems (view the statewide channel listing here: https://www.nysenate.gov/about-legislative-cable-channel).
    As I stated at the start, this year’s legislative hearings are crucial. The next state budget could have a transformational impact on most of the key issues facing us. 
    In my new role as the top Republican member on the Finance Committee – where we face an uphill fight as a minority party in a state government firmly under one-party control at the moment – I’m hopeful to continue being a voice for lower taxes, less regulation, greater accountability, economic growth, job creation, and more common sense on state fiscal practices.
  20. Senator Tom O'Mara
    From Arlington to Gettysburg to Woodlawn and hundreds of other national veterans’ cemeteries and monuments across this land, Americans will gather once again to observe Memorial Day.
    The nation’s long-standing Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in the nation’s capital is highlighted by a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, on which the following words are inscribed, “Here rests in honored glory an American solider known but to God.”
    Therein lies the essence of Memorial Day: To pause in our daily lives, in our own ways, in our own places, and to remember the American soldiers who now rest “in honored glory” in service to us, our families, our communities, state, and nation.
    The New York State Senate opens its daily legislative sessions by standing and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, which is then followed by an Invocation or a moment of silence. Several years ago, in late May 2016, Assemblyman Phil Palmesano and I invited the late Reverend Lewis Brown of Painted Post, who passed away last September, to join us at the Capitol to deliver the Opening Prayer in the Senate and Assembly. Some of you may recall Father Lew. He was the Chaplain of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in Elmira and a member of the Knights of Columbus. He served a number of parishes including, in his last assignment, All Saints Parish in Corning. Prior to all of that, however, he served 22 years of active duty as a United States Navy Chaplain in various capacities including with the Marines in Okinawa, Japan; as ship’s company aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz; and at the Washington Navy Yard inWashington, D.C., with duty at Arlington National Cemetery.
    Five years ago, Father Lew offered one of the most-well-received Invocations ever delivered in our Chamber. It was a “Prayer for the Military” – one so fitting as we prepared for Memorial Day that year – which included the inspiring words “to strengthen our conviction and give us the courage to be a home for the brave and a land for the free.”
    In fact, Father Lew received a standing ovation in the Senate that day following his invocation. I'd never witnessed a standing O for an invocation in the Senate prior or since, and many of my more senior colleagues at that time commented that they had never seen one either. It was truly an amazing prayer from a great American in memory of so many great Americans!
    Particularly memorable for me were those repeated words, conviction and courage. It is conviction and courage, after all, that has led and will always lead our soldiers into battle. And it is through our own personal conviction and courage, in our own ways and walks of life, through which we can best honor the sacrifices of our military men and women.    
    Toward that end, we continue to raise the American Flag.
    We proudly recognize New York State as the “Birthplace of Memorial Day,” which our nation has observed since the time of the Civil War
    Of course, we always turn enduring thoughts and prayers to the young soldiers, the heroes, who have been recently lost. We honor wounded warriors and we support the men and women serving in harm’s way at this very moment -- shining examples of bravery and eternal honor. 
    We salute all New York State veterans and the millions more across the nation. I have been privileged to pay tribute to the service of outstanding local veterans through the New York State Senate Veterans’ Hall of Fame, into which more than 400 veterans have been inducted since 2005. This includes the following area veterans that I have had the privilege to induct since 2011: Philip C. Smith of Schuyler County; J. Arthur “Archie” Kieffer, Chemung County; former Painted Post Mayor Roswell L. “Roz” Crozier, Jr.; Anthony J. “Tony” Specchio, Sr., Schuyler County; P. Earle Gleason, Yates County;  Warren A. Thompson, Steuben County; and Paul C. “Digger” Vendetti, Chemung County. The Senate’s online Veterans’ Hall of Fame can be viewed on my Senate website, www.omara.nysenate.gov.
    Because of our veterans, we can look into the eyes of the young people in our lives this Memorial Day, the faces of the future, and have faith that they, too, will be instilled with the spirit to keep America strong, to keep believing that the American way is a good, decent, worthwhile way.
    In the end, perhaps this is the greatest justice for all of the missions flown, the foxholes dug, the hills taken, and the battles fought on land and sea.
    America’s Armed Forces have made and will continue to make the ultimate sacrifice to keep America free, so that she can lead the way to a more free world. 
    The sacrifices of our military will keep alive America’s promise, so that people throughout the world will look to her for inspiration. 
    Our servicemen and servicewomen will keep America strong, so that other nations will draw courage from her strength.
    For as long as we remember and keep them alive in our hearts, we will stand as we do -- free in a land of opportunity and promise.
    The spirit of this salute will endure and remain strong for the future.
    God Bless America and God Bless our troops.
  21. Senator Tom O'Mara
    New York Governor Kathy Hochul has now put forth one of her administration’s most ambitious public policy proposals to date and, in doing so, gave all of us a good look at her administration’s vision for addressing one of our state’s most urgent short- and long-term challenges: energy. 
    With that in mind, it’s fair to say at this juncture that the Hochul administration is squarely following in the footsteps of the Cuomo administration – which only continues to raise serious and troubling questions for Upstate New York energy consumers (that’s us ratepayers), businesses (particularly manufacturers), and communities who will be asked to bear a heavy burden for the cost of subsidizing New York City, downstate energy demands.  
    Governor Hochul took the reins of a Cuomo-generated renewable energy strategy already in motion and has now advanced specific projects to accomplish its far-reaching aim to extend the state’s energy grid through a significant expansion of wind, solar, and hydropower projects. 
    Overall, the goal remains to meet at least 70% of the state’s energy needs through renewable energy sources by 2030. 
    The statewide goal remains laudable, but utopian.  As a longtime member of the energy committees in both the Senate and Assembly, I have said and continue to fully agree that New YorkState should be leading the way in renewable energy development, and we are.  
    At the same time, I continue to stress that it needs to be done in ways that make sure that our residents and businesses have the energy they need right now to live and thrive in New York – and, I’ll add, that every step is taken to ensure that New York-based companies, entrepreneurs, generators and investors are always first in line when it comes to the jobs, revenues, and other economic development benefits being promised by the state’s leap into the so-called “green economy.” 
    Consequently, Governor Hochul’s announcement last week laid bare some troubling directions and a pipeline full of unanswered questions. 
    In unveiling the cornerstones of her plans, Governor Hochul said, “These transformative projects are a win-win – delivering thousands of new good-paying jobs throughout the state and attracting billions of dollars in private investment.  They also help us turn the page on New York City’s long-standing dependence on fossil fuels.” 
    It potentially could have been a “win-win” to write home about, except that Governor Hochul gave away one of these wins for New York State.  
    Exhibit A is one of the plan’s centerpiece proposals, the Canada-based Champlain Hudson Power Express. It calls for a nearly 340-mile span of buried cable, traversing land and water, to bring Canadian hydropower and wind from Hydro-Quebec to an energy station in Queens, New York City. 
    First and foremost, the plan fails to detail the costs of what can only be described as a massive and complex undertaking or, most importantly, the extent to which ratepayers throughout the state will be on the hook for covering these costs through higher utility bills.  
    Affordability seems to be a factor completely disregarded in Governor Hochul’s choice of these transmission projects. The other approved project, Clear Path, is to be built 174 miles “underground,” a requirement that will conservatively increase the cost by 10 to 20 times. 
    Equally puzzling, why is New York State gifting to Canada a marquee green-energy project that could help create thousands of good jobs and spark badly need economic development in numerous Upstate communities? Why forfeit this win? Trust me, there are plenty of New York State-based, private-sector generators more than eager for an opportunity like this one. 
    In fact, the proposed Champlain Hudson Power Express completely bypasses Upstate New York. There is not even an interconnecting Upstate converter station to allow Upstate power companies to tap into this supply, nor for Upstate electric generators to use this energy highway to get New York State-produced electric to the downstate markets in need of it. The lack of requiring an Upstate juncture perpetuates a bottleneck that has existed for far too long and places far too much reliance on foreign power. Furthermore, it fails to allow an alternative source of needed power in case of a potential drought in Canada eliminating this supply.    
    The Independent Power Producers of New York (IPPNY) reacted to this proposed outsourcing of jobs, exorbitant costs, and the bypassing of in-state generators in a statement. 
    IPPNY President and CEO Gavin J. Donohue said, “In addition to its hefty price tag, the Champlain Hudson line has long brought concerns of outsourcing New York jobs and lackluster emission reductions due to ‘greenwashing.’ While the State’s process will ultimately verify the source of the power on the line, giving this opportunity to a Canadian company rather thanNew York’s generators who have stepped up to the plate time and time again is wrong.”  
    Last week, Governor Hochul reinforced for all of us a vision for the future of energy in New York State that leaves plenty of us wondering about its practicality, cost, and fairness -- particularly for Upstate New York. 
    It’s a vision that we can never afford to have guided by political goals taking precedence over the best path to keeping the lights on for all New Yorkers in the most practical, cost-effective, smart, and fair way. 
  22. Senator Tom O'Mara
    The drumbeats of doubt have continued to grow louder throughout the past few weeks as reality sets in over the ongoing, utopian plan by Albany Democrats to impose sweeping clean energy mandates on all New Yorkers.
    Since the enactment several years ago of a far-reaching climate agenda known as the “Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act” (CLCPA), as well as the approval of other mandated actions since then, the governor, her energy czars, and a Democrat-led state Legislature have been moving fast and furious to impose one of the world’s most radical climate agendas on every citizen, every community, and every sector of the state’s economy.  
     As I and many others have stated repeatedly, these actions come with a devastating price tag and consequences. Keep in mind some of the mandates already in the works:
    No natural gas within newly constructed buildings, beginning in 2025; No new gas service to existing buildings, beginning in 2030; An all-electric school bus mandate starting in 2027; No replacement natural gas appliances for home heating, cooking, water heating, clothes drying beginning in 2035; and No gasoline-automobile sales by 2035. Throughout July, however, the drumbeats of doubt have intensified.
    First came a July 1 report from the Hochul administration that the timeline to achieve 70 percent renewable energy by 2030 and zero emissions by 2040 isn’t realistic and, in fact, can’t be met.
    Consequently, it’s going to be back to the drawing board on the CLCPA and other climate mandates, which is good news. It will at least open a long-overdue and desperately needed public discussion on the realities of the current strategy.
    That discussion must start out with what the Albany Democrats failed to do in the first place six years ago: a true cost-benefit analysis of New York State eliminating our 0.4% of global carbon emissions and what impact that will have on the climate change issues we have been dealing with. While I fully support efforts to lower emissions, it must be done in a responsible manner that will actually make a difference on climate. If that answer is nil, which I believe it will be, we should focus our resources toward resiliency on the effects of climate change.
    The need for this reassessment was given further urgency in recent weeks.
    First, in a preliminary analysis, NYSIO, the state’s independent grid operator, warned that under the current timeline the state, according to Politico, is “at risk of blackouts without significant new generation coming online before the middle of the next decade.”
     Most recently came an eye-raising new audit and report from State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli that the implementation of the Democrats’ climate agenda has been seriously flawed and, especially, that its true costs remain unknown. In other words, the comptroller’s audit confirmed the alarms over affordability, feasibility, and reliability that many of us have been raising from the outset. Among other findings, the comptroller’s audit found that:
     “The Public Service Commission (PSC), tasked under the Climate Act with establishing and reviewing the state's renewable energy program, sometimes used outdated data and wrong calculations to determine if the state could reach 70% renewably sourced electricity by 2030. The PSC did not update their calculations based on new laws and directives, which may drive clean energy demand and supply up, like electric vehicles, new green buildings, or electric cooling and heating. PSC also did not fully account for other potential risks, and did not consider certain challenges that could delay meeting the state’s clean energy targets;” and, maybe most troubling of all, "The PSC did not reasonably estimate or verify other entities’ estimates of the cost of the transition to          renewable energy. Undertaking a project without knowing the costs increases the risk that the project will not succeed. The absence of cost estimates also makes it difficult, if not impossible, to assess its impact on New Yorkers, including those who are currently struggling to pay their utility bills and who have faced rising costs over the past two decades. PSC officials stated that they expect the cost for renewable energy to decrease as time goes on but did not produce an analysis that demonstrated how quickly they expect these costs to decline.” Responding to the comptroller’s report, Upstate United Executive Director Justin Wilcox stated, “Following the release of the New York State Comptroller’s most recent audit, we reiterate our calls to pause the implementation of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) until critical issues are addressed. Moreover, the report shared today highlights what we have been saying publicly for years – utility bills are rising dramatically, and New Yorkers continue to be left in the dark when it comes to the true costs associated with the CLCPA.”
    Well said and I could not agree more. I’ve said it before, and it bears repeating: The current strategy is not realistic or achievable. It is not responsible or rational. It lacks critical foresight, and it unreasonably risks energy grid reliability and affordability.
    Senator Tom O'Mara represents New York's 58th District which covers all of Chemung, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga and Yates counties, and a portion of Allegany County.
  23. Senator Tom O'Mara
    Over the past several years, New York State has become notorious for politically driven, far-left ideology overriding reality, ideology overruling common sense, and, ultimately, ideology overturning the common good.
    That’s been true on immigration, climate, fiscal practices, criminal justice, and other arenas of public policy which have become dominated by the one-party, largely far-left, highly politicized control of government.
    The current crisis in our correctional facilities is now the prime example.
    Striking correctional officers have made it eminently clear what the danger is here: chaos and breakdown.
    Not long ago, our Senate Republican conference met with spouses and other family members of these same correctional officers, and they made it clear in the most compelling ways.
    Last week outside the state Capitol, while the Hochul administration continued to move to fire officers, terminate their families’ health insurance, and threaten fines and even imprisonment, hundreds of correctional officers and their families and supporters kept making it clear again at a rally: Your ideology was wrong. It can’t work. It has upended any shred of law and order within our facilities, which have become violent, dangerous, and life-threatening.
    As of this writing, the strike remains ongoing and in constant uncertainty. What cannot change in any eventual outcome, however, is the need to admit that one Albany Democrat policy in particular has been a failure, as predicted from the outset by many of us from the very time it was enacted. This crisis has been years in the making, going back over a decade when then-Governor Andrew Cuomo began rapidly closing prisons throughout New York and thereby putting enormous strain on the remaining system – and it will take years now to hopefully restore the system.
    But one action must be the starting point. The “Humane Alternatives to Solitary Confinement (HALT) Act,” better known as the HALT Act, was approved in 2021 by the Legislature’s Democrat majorities and signed into law by then-Governor Cuomo to fundamentally restrict the ability of prison officials to discipline the state’s most violent inmates by separating them from the general population. New York’s correctional officers were already warning that moving forward with HALT would put officers and the entire correctional system at great risk.
    The New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association (NYSCOPBA) began holding rallies across New York in early 2022 calling for the law’s repeal. I joined officers at many of these rallies, as did many of my legislative colleagues.
    NYSCOPBA President Michael Powers said in 2022: “As we have said for years, the HALT Act would only do one thing, make our correctional facilities more dangerous. The New York State Legislature, the people who created this poorly thought-out legislation are directly responsible for the skyrocketing violence we’re experiencing in our prisons today. They ignored our warnings, our pleas to educate themselves properly before passing HALT, and now they’ve put the lives of everyone who resides or works in a correctional setting at risk.”
    That’s exactly what has brought us here today: Albany Democrats ignored our warnings, our pleas to educate themselves properly before passing HALT, and they put the lives of everyone who resides or works in a correctional setting at risk.
    Three years later, inmate assaults on staff have doubled and inmate-on-inmate assaults have nearly tripled, highlighting an escalating trend of rising violence inside prison walls while ongoing prison closures, staffing shortages, and unreasonable and unrealistic mandatory overtime demands have forced officers to work in conditions far beyond any semblance of balance and fairness for them and their families and loved ones. The vast majority of correctional officers and staff within the Elmira Correctional Facility and Five Points Correctional Facility, both of which I represent, and at facilities throughout the state, kept going to work mandatory regular day off shift upon mandatory overtime shift, often 24-hour-plus tours, day after day, night after night, month after month, year after year, to undertake the duties and responsibilities they’re charged with diligently, professionally, and respectfully in an ever increasingly unsafe environment.
    Until that just wasn’t possible anymore. Until it just wasn’t SAFE anymore. Until they finally decided that yet another misguided Albany Democrat policy was not more important, could not be more important than their personal safety, the overall security of their facilities, and the future of their families and loved ones.
    I, my Republican colleagues, and corrections officers have repeatedly warned Albany Democrats over the past three years that the situation was a powder keg. This strike is the resultant explosion.
    So far, Albany Democrats have kept their sense of reality and the truth buried under their ideology.
    Consequently, we face a correctional system in crisis and on the brink of a collapse.
    “(Albany Democrats) ignored our warnings, our pleas to educate themselves properly before passing HALT, and now they’ve put the lives of everyone who resides or works in a correctional setting at risk,” NYSCOPBA’s president warned three years ago.
    Exactly.
     
    Senator Tom O'Mara represents New York's 58th District which covers all of Chemung, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga and Yates counties, and a portion of Allegany County.
  24. Senator Tom O'Mara
    New York still doesn’t have a new state budget. Instead, Governor Hochul and the Democrat-led State Legislature are running state government on a series of emergency extender measures, ten in total as of this writing.
    It’s no way to run a government. It produces uncertainty, concern, and a lack of confidence, rightly so, about where the state is headed.
    Governor Hochul went solo early last week, like she did last year, and announced a “general agreement” on what she claimed will be a $254-billion spending plan for this new fiscal year. To which the Democrat leaders of the Legislature responded with, “Not so fast.”
    Consequently, we head into another week without a final budget, without critical details of what might be included (or not included) in any final plan, and with all of it sure sounding like there remain more than a fair share of important issues unresolved and under discussion behind closed doors.
    Meanwhile, we keep hearing and seeing the warning signs of trouble ahead:
    From Bloomberg News, “A net 30,000 New Yorkers fled (New York City) for Florida’s Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties in the five years through 2022, taking with them a combined $9.2 billion in income.” Keep in mind that New York State’s revenues overall are highly dependent on the income taxes paid by these high-income earners, many of whom live and work in the city; The budget “agreement” announced by the governor calls for hiking the payroll tax rate for companies with payrolls of $10 million a year from 0.6% to 0.895% -- a move which many see as just the beginning of New York’s unending search for higher taxes to continue paying for unaffordable state spending. From the New York Post, “Business owners and industry reps warned the looming tax increase…will cause bigger companies to leave the state and make cuts that’ll hit workers in the pocketbooks.” From state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, “Major cuts in federal funding simply cannot be replaced by state taxpayers, will reduce the services the state provides and will exacerbate the long-standing history of New Yorkers sending more of their hard-earned tax dollars to the federal government than they get back.” Despite this looming uncertainty, state leaders ignore this reality and instead of moving forward with some caution, common sense, and restraint, appear ready to go ahead and hike state spending by at least $15 billion over last year with a pledge to reconvene down the road to make any necessary adjustments which, by the way, the governor is seeking the authority to do unilaterally. The trouble for taxpayers is that we’re still not certain where any final budget enacted by the governor and legislative majorities will wind up. As noted in this column last week, final budget bills will ultimately get rushed through the legislative process, with no reasonable or responsible time for public review, often late at night, and taxpayers will be left holding the bag for a whole host of unwanted – and, once again, unaffordable -- surprises.
    That’s been the modus operandi defining this era in state government. Last year, remember, Albany Democrats left town in late April touting the enactment of a 2024-2025 budget totaling $237 billion. Turns out, a little over a month later, that their budget actually called for spending roughly $240 billion. That was according to a report quietly released on a Friday afternoon by the governor’s own Division of the Budget (DOB).
    That was a significant difference. It wasn’t just pocket change. It meant that state spending last year increased by $10 billion. This year, it will be a $15-billion increase – that’s if we can take their word for it this time around and there’s not another surprise readjustment on tap.
    State government’s spending habits have become so addictive that, eventually, every move that everyday citizens make in New York will come attached with another cost, another tax, or another new fee or mandate. It will have an enormous impact on the future for all of us.
    It keeps coming down to this, year after year, under one-party control: dire fiscal forecasts keep arriving, not only after an ongoing, unprecedented, multi-year spending spree, but also at the same time the Democrats keep initiating enormous, additional state spending commitments for which they don’t even yet know the final price tag. An ongoing illegal migrant crisis. Increased Medicaid spending. A multi-billion-dollar Unemployment Insurance debt. And let’s not forget the costs of Albany's Green New Deal with its outrageously costly, full electrification mandates, to name just a few.
    This year’s final, supposedly $254 billion spending plan will be just the latest chapter. Albany Democrats have simply and carelessly thrown caution (along with taxpayer dollars) to the wind. Since 2018, they will have increased state spending by an amount approaching $90 billion -- and far too much of it in a relentless pursuit of a misguided, questionable, unsustainable political agenda.
    Senator Tom O'Mara represents New York's 58th District which covers all of Chemung, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga and Yates counties, and a portion of Allegany County.
  25. Senator Tom O'Mara
    We’ve reached the final week of joint Senate-Assembly public hearings on Governor Kathy Hochul’s 2025-2026 proposed state budget, which began in late January. Conducted jointly by the Senate Finance Committee, and the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, these forums have examined and critiqued the governor’s proposal in some detail with testimony from state agency officials, public policy and fiscal experts, local government representatives, business leaders, educators, farmers, law enforcement, and many other advocates.
    At week’s end, the stage will be set for final negotiations between the governor and legislative leaders on a new state budget. What that means, once again, is that New York’s new fiscal and spending plan will be an all-Democrat decision and throughout the hearings, there’s been no indication that Albany Democrats will be turning away from the big-spending direction they’ve set for this state since taking complete control of state government’s purse strings in 2019.
    I have served as the Ranking Member on the Finance Committee since 2021. Year after year, together with many legislative colleagues in both houses of the Legislature, we have warned that New York’s skyrocketing spending is not sustainable.
    Remember that Governor Hochul has proposed a 2025-26 budget that starts at $252 billion! That’s simply a mind-boggling number in a state that over the past several years has been no stranger to mind-boggling numbers. The governor’s proposal is already an approximately $19-billion increase over her proposed budget last year, which was record-setting. In other words, the governor and the all-Democrat leaders of the Senate and Assembly – widely acknowledged as the biggest-spending Legislature in state history -- will start final negotiations over a new budget looking to increase state spending by at least $19 billion.
    It’s likely to go significantly higher because that’s what they’ve always done. Since 2019, the state budget has increased by nearly $70 billion. That's 40% growth, far outpacing inflation, in just six years of Albany Democrats in complete control.
    If Governor Hochul’s proposed Medicaid spending increases alone are enacted, spending on Medicaid will have increased by nearly 60 percent across the four budgets she has overseen as the governor.
    “The need to strengthen the State’s fiscal position has never been greater,” state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli, a Democrat, recently warned in his own analysis of the governor’s budget proposal. “The State’s structural budgetary imbalance has grown, as spending from State sources has strongly increased in recent years and is projected to rise at a rate that outpaces revenues.”
    Specifically, the comptroller reports that if currently proposed spending levels are enacted (and keep in mind that this all-Democrat Legislature has always pushed, and pushed successfully, for even higher levels of spending), New York’s budget deficit is projected to reach nearly $28 billion by 2028.
    “Uncertainty over federal funding and the ending of federal pandemic aid creates an urgent need to strengthen the state’s fiscal position,” the comptroller concluded. “Preserving state services and maintaining long-term budget balance will require a careful examination of the state’s spending trajectory” to ensure “long-term fiscal viability.”
    Translated: Stop the out-of-control spending. Unfortunately, what we’ve heard at this month’s legislative hearings doesn’t inspire confidence that Albany Democrats will heed that warning whatsoever.
    Our Senate and Assembly Republican conferences will go on speaking out for greater common sense on state fiscal practices. In our view, we need to keep working against a New York State tax and regulatory mindset that puts our businesses and manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage, imposes red tape that strangles local economies, or prioritizes higher and higher spending, overtaxing, outrageous mandates, and burdensome overregulation.
    Our Senate conference has also put forth a “Liberate New York” legislative agenda offering a range of policies focusing on public safety and security, economic growth and job creation, tax relief and regulatory reform, and affordability initiatives to try to reverse New York’s nation-leading population loss. You can read more details of our proposal on my Senate website, www.omara.nysenate.gov.
     
    Senator Tom O'Mara represents New York's 58th District which covers all of Chemung, Schuyler, Seneca, Steuben, Tioga and Yates counties, and a portion of Allegany County.
×
×
  • Create New...