State budget deal reached

Albany, NY (WBEN) Governor Hochul has announced an agreement on a state budget that includes reforms for car insurance and relief from utility bills.

“I promised a Budget that works for working people and expands opportunities for all New Yorkers and I was not going to back down from that fight,” Governor Hochul said. “Alongside my partners in the Legislature, today we are delivering on that promise. This Budget includes sweeping changes to lower costs, enhance public safety, protect our communities from federal overreach and invest in the future of New York families.”

Hochul says the budget is putting New York State on a concrete path to universal, affordable child care, beginning with committing to investments that will support the delivery of affordable child care to up to 100,000 additional children.

Hochul says the investment will increase funding by $1.7 billion bringing the total FY27 investment to $4.5 billion for child care and pre-kindergarten services statewide.

She says these investments will:

• Make Pre-K truly universal statewide with funding to make high-quality Pre-K seats available for all four-year-olds in New York by the start of the 2028-29 school year and increasing State grants to existing programs to ensure high-quality care.
• Partner with New York City to launch the new 2-Care program and finally realize the promise of universal 3K access in New York City.
• Enhance the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit to help defray childcare expenses for 230,000 New York families by providing an average benefit of $576.
• Support the development of New York’s ‘First 3’ program, which will partner with counties to offer high-quality, affordable child care to children 0-3 regardless of income.
• Make historic investments in the Child Care Assistance Program, delivering high-quality, affordable child care to tens of thousands of additional young New Yorkers that is capped at $15 a week for most families.
• Support the child care workforce through early childhood educator preparation.

The final State Budget will:

• Cap payouts for drivers engaging in criminal behavior at the time of the incident, including uninsured motorists, drunk drivers, and drivers in the act of committing a felony.
• Better define what actually constitutes a ‘serious injury’ so that damages for pain and suffering or emotional distress are reserved for those able to objectively demonstrate that they have suffered a serious injury.
• Ensure that if a driver is found to be mostly at fault for causing an accident, they cannot claim outsized payments for damages.
• Prevent insurance companies from exorbitantly raising rates by setting a legal threshold that prevents excess profits and returns savings to consumers.
• Create new regulatory safeguards to prevent insurance companies from raising rates without seeking express approval from the Department of Financial Services.
• Protect consumers by prohibiting insurance companies from setting rates based on extraneous, personal factors like homeownership status, occupation, education level or zip code.
• These measures come in addition to the Governor’s whole-of-government approach to combatting fraud by tasking DFS, DMV, DCJS and NYSP with a more proactive and coordinated approach to enforcement.

Hochul notes the budget also includes a Ratepayer Protection Plan comprised of a sweeping set of reforms to modernize the Public Service Law, demand strict fiscal discipline from utilities and empower the State to fight more effectively for lower bills. The Budget will:

• Tie executive pay directly to customer affordability.
• Require utilities to present a Budget constrained option that keeps their operating and capital costs below the rate of inflation when requesting a rate increase to ensure efficiency and affordability are prioritized.
• Ensure customers do not foot the bill for hidden costs like lobbying, political contributions and unnecessary executive travel.