Albany, N.Y., March 30--State Senator Tom O’Mara (R,C,I-Big Flats), Assemblyman Phil Palmesano (R,C,I-Corning), and Assemblyman Chris Friend (R,C,I) today urged Governor Andrew Cuomo and the Democrat leaders of the State Legislature to accept more than $5 billion in badly needed federal COVID-19 response assistance and not enact a 2020-2021 state budget this week that requires county governments and local property taxpayers to pick up more of the cost of New York’s Medicaid system.
The lawmakers stressed that now is not the time for the state to begin requiring counties to cover a larger share of the Medicaid system that already costs taxpayers more than $70 billion a year.
The lawmakers stressed that now is not the time for the state to begin requiring counties to cover a larger share of the Medicaid system that already costs taxpayers more than $70 billion a year.
In a joint statement, O’Mara, Palmesano, and Friend said, “Governor Cuomo appears to be teeing up action later this week that will remove the cap on local Medicaid costs. That misguided action would leave our counties and local property taxpayers having to pay millions upon millions of dollars more annually for a Medicaid system that is already overburdening local budgets. That’s not fair. That’s not responsible. Now is not the time to add to local burdens when this coronavirus pandemic is already shutting down local economies and leaving in its wake a future of fiscal uncertainty, at best, for county governments and local property taxpayers.”
Before the coronavirus crisis, New York was already preparing to deal with a state budget deficit of more than $6 billion, largely resulting from overspending in the Medicaid program. In response, the governor reconvened a Medicaid Redesign Team (MRT) late last year. The MRT recently issued recommendations for cost savings in the state’s Medicaid program, including the removal of the cap on the growth in local Medicaid costs first enacted by the state in 2012. The cap has produced more than $7 billion in savings for local governments.
O’Mara, Palmesano, and Friend said the COVID-19 pandemic is already putting an enormous strain on county budgets and with the inevitable loss of sales tax and other revenue that will result from shuttered economies regionally and statewide, many local governments could already find themselves on the brink of bankruptcy.
The New York State Association of Counties (NYSAC) updated a report today estimating that the pandemic’s economic impact on local governments could be $2 billion.
