The Senate Republicans’ Rescue New York

2023 Agenda: A Plan for a Safer, Stronger, More

Affordable and More Free New York

The Vision for a Safer, Stronger, More Affordable and More Free New York will restore
balance and common sense to our state government while vigorously rejecting the
extreme policies that Senate Democrats have imposed on New Yorkers. From billions of
dollars in tax relief, jump-starting our slow economic recovery, and restoring common
sense to our criminal justice system, our agenda will lead New York to a safer, stronger,
more affordable, and more free future.

A Safer New York

Restoring Common Sense to Our Criminal Justice System to Prevent Crime

and Protect New Yorkers

● Reversing the disastrous criminal justice policies that have made our
communities less safe including Bail Reform, Discovery Reform, Less is More, and
HALT.
● Reject criminal-first proposals such as the Clean Slate Act, elder parole, and
sentencing reform.
● Making public safety a priority of our criminal justice system by giving judges
the ability to set bail based on risk and the danger posed by a defendant.
● Investing in Local law enforcement by creating the SAFER Communities Grant
Program to invest in critical investigatory and prosecutorial resources designed to
increase case clearance rates for homicides and gun crimes.
● Reducing the use and prevalence of illegal firearms by increasing funding for
gun interdiction efforts, increasing penalties for crimes committed with stolen
firearms, and requiring mandatory consecutive sentences for crimes involving an
illegal firearm.
● Curtailing Gun Crimes by making any misdemeanor or felony offense involving the
use or possession of a firearm, shotgun, or rifle bail eligible and by amending Raise

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 the Age to ensure 16 and 17-year-olds charged with certain gun-related,
gang-related, and/or violent offenses are prosecuted as adults.
● Addressing drug crimes by establishing the crime of homicide by sale of an
opiate-controlled substance and by making drug offenses bail eligible and allowing
judges to remand someone to treatment.
● Protecting and supporting crime victims by:
○ restricting the release of identifying information in certain cases;
○ increasing the caps on Office of Victim Services reimbursements for crime
victims;
○ investing in victim support programs;
○ putting in place policies to protect victims' rights during the parole process;
and
○ authorizing judges to set lifetime orders of protection for certain crimes
(violent and domestic violence felonies).
● Giving law enforcement more investigatory tools by allowing familial DNA
searching in New York State.
● Increasing support for New York State Park Police officers throughout the State
Park system by increasing officer recruitment; retention; and ensuring a properly
equipped, skilled, and diverse park officer force.

Increasing Efforts and Investment to End the Opioid and Mental Health
Epidemics

● Increasing the availability of mental health treatment options by:

○ increasing support for inpatient and outpatient treatment by funding both
juvenile and adult mental health beds and restoring them to pre-OMH
Transformation Plan levels of 2,866 Adult beds and 460 Childrens Beds;
○ make Kendra’s Law permanent and adopt the expansions to the Assisted
Outpatient Treatment (AOT) Program included in Mayor Adams’ Psychiatric
Crisis Care Legislative Agenda.
○ appropriately funding our mental health system by increasing state mental
health funding levels with a focus on funding services for children and young
people; and

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 ○ stopping any further reduction of mental health beds by placing a 5-year
moratorium on bed reductions at State hospitals and requiring any public
hearings and legislative approval before any future reductions as part of the
OMH facility Transformation Plan
● Expanding access to mental health services in our schools by establishing a
Mental Health Services Coordinator Program, reimbursing school districts for the
hiring of mental health services professionals, and providing targeted State-aid to
address mental health issues related to remote learning and social isolation.
● Reducing overdose death and closing treatment gaps by:
○ increasing heroin and opioid prevention and treatment funding by $75
million over three years in line with recommendations given in the Senate
Heroin & Opioid Addiction Task Force released in October 2018;
○ Increasing penalties for the sale, transportation, or processing of Fentanyl;
○ providing additional funding for drug courts;
○ expanding peer support programs and increasing the availability of naloxone
and medication-assisted treatment.
● Opening crisis stabilization centers throughout New York that connect people in
need to critical mental health and substance-use services by supporting local efforts
to establish centers and/or opening state-operated centers to ensure residents in
every county have access to such facilities.
● Ensuring opioid settlement funds are being used for the treatment of opioid
use disorder and preventing overdose deaths by ensuring such funds have the
approval of the Opioid Settlement Board.
● Supporting mental health, disability, and other human services direct care
workforce by increasing their cost-of-living adjustment and making sure these
professionals have the resources to help those who need it most.

Supporting and Protecting our Seniors

● Providing relief to retirees by increasing the amount of private pension and/or

retirement income that is tax-free above the current $20,000 limit.
● Supporting and investing in our nursing homes to ensure they have the
resources to provide high-quality care to New York’s seniors in a safe environment.

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 ● Expanding home care options for aging New Yorkers including bolstering our
home care workforce and providing tax benefits for family caregivers.

A Stronger New York

Providing a High-Quality Education to All Students

● Closing the pandemic learning loss gap by ensuring unspent Federal Elementary
and Secondary school Emergency Relief aid supports academic recovery programs
(e.g. intensive daily tutoring) and by creating an office in the State Education
Department to track outcomes of such programs.
● Expanding school choice by eliminating or increasing the charter school cap to
provide for more options where they are needed, providing the ability for
high-performing charter schools to expand, and infusing the system with efficient
and quality education options.
● Protecting and expanding educational opportunities for all students by
supporting the use of the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT) to
determine admission to New York City’s specialized high schools, increasing access
to advanced placement courses, and ensuring special education students have
access to the resources they need to thrive.
● Setting high standards of performance through accountability, rewarding and
retaining high-performing teachers, structured teacher support and training efforts,
providing a greater degree of autonomy to principals in personnel and budget
decisions, and removing barriers to entering the teaching profession, opening the
door to a larger and more diverse applicant pool.
● Meeting the nutritional needs of students by providing funding for food
backpack programs that provide families with free groceries for weekends and
school breaks, for the continuation of free breakfast and lunch programs for all
students, and more local sourcing of food supplies.
● Protecting our students by establishing a school resource officer (SRO) education
grant program to reimburse school districts outside the city of New York, for the
hiring of an SRO.

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Expanding Economic Opportunity and Strengthening Our Workforce

● Bolstering workforce education by:

○ creating a statewide industry certification policy that establishes a process
for identifying in-demand credentials by region, tracking attainment and
employment outcomes, and incentivizing colleges to offer and provide credit
for in-demand industry credentials; and
○ encouraging community colleges to consolidate their non-credit and credit
workforce education programs under one roof; and
● Expanding Career and Technical Education (CTE) by:
○ providing BOCES with enhanced incentives and resources to increase the
number of skilled trade graduates in New York;
○ increasing state support for CTE by phasing in an increase of aidable salaries
for CTE teachers, expanding opportunities to provide career and technical
education to younger students and students with disabilities, and expanding
the number of SED-approved technical assessments;
○ Developing career and college exploration curricula in our schools and
increasing support for and utilization of BOCES by expanding pathways to
high school graduation; and
○ Supporting innovative programs by providing flexibility and support for
school districts to collaborate to form regional technical high schools.
● Improving the alignment between employers’ needs and workers' skills by
centralizing apprenticeship programs, funding regionally-driven/industry-led career
pathways/sectoral partnerships, and adopting Invest in Skills NY “credential
passport” enabling participants in various pathways (CTE, BOCES, etc.) to transition
seamlessly from institution to institution.
● Giving workers the freedom to work and expanding the state’s skilled
workforce by eliminating unnecessary occupational licensing restrictions,
promoting interstate professional licensing reciprocity, and eliminating unnecessary
college education requirements for state/local government employment.

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 ● Providing roughly $200 million in targeted tax relief to hardworking families
and support work by Increasing New York’s Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) benefit
to 35 percent of the federal credit.
● Investing in upgrading workforce development facilities and technology at
community colleges, noncredit programs, BOCES, public libraries, and local one-stop
career centers.

Investing in Infrastructure for the 21st Century

● Expanding access to broadband to all New Yorkers by:

○ ensuring that State-funded projects are based on accurate availability data;
○ clearing the way for new technologies;
○ reducing the cost of deployment by eliminating prevailing wage
requirements on State-funded broadband projects; and
○ providing a refundable tax credit for residents and small businesses in rural
areas that pay out-of-pocket expenses for network construction costs.
● Ensuring funding parity between Upstate and Downstate infrastructure
funding by putting NYSDOT and MTA capital programs on equal footing.
● Supporting investment in local roads and bridges by increasing Consolidated
Local Street and Highway Improvement Program (CHIPS) base aid.
● Prioritizing projects that provide high-rate returns on investments to the
economy, public safety, and the environment via a coordinated capital planning
process for infrastructure investment.
● Reducing project costs through regulatory reform, rationalizing the
environmental review process, and the implementation of innovative practices such
as best value procurement.
● Protecting our drinking water by increasing funding for a safe, reliable water and
sewer infrastructure.
● Making the Empire State more resilient to extreme weather events and the
impact of climate change by hardening our shorelines, taking additional steps to
mitigate coastal erosion and flooding, and ensuring we have well-designed protocols
in place to keep residents safe during weather-related emergencies.

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Helping our Veterans and Military Families Thrive

● Providing critical treatment and support to our veterans by making funding

permanent and expanding the Joseph P. Dwyer Veterans Peer Support Program and
the number of Veterans Treatment Courts across New York State.
● Ensuring injured veterans have access to healthcare by establishing the "New
York's Own Combat Veterans Healthcare Choice Program Act" to establish tax-free
savings accounts to pay the healthcare costs of certain combat veterans until
covered by the federal government.
● Increasing funding for Local Veteran Service Agencies that offer support
programs, connect veterans to services and housing, increase community
awareness about issues faced by veterans, and provide transportation.

A More Affordable New York

Cutting the Empire State’s Highest-in-the-Nation Tax Burden and Controlling

Government Spending

● Requiring a Supermajority for Tax Increases and further authorizing the State to
deposit funds in the Rainy Day Fund.
● Continuing to fight against misguided tax increases and phasing out temporary
tax provisions.
● Permanently capping State spending by making the two-percent spending cap
permanent and increasing the State’s authorization to deposit funds in the Rainy
Day Fund.
● Eliminating costly unfunded mandates that drive up local property taxes by
requiring the State to fund any future programs, placing a moratorium on any new
unfunded mandates, and by creating a Mandate Review Counsel to eliminate or
suspend costly and ineffective mandates.
● Opposing New York Health Act (statewide single-payer health plan) that would
double taxes in New York State.

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 ● Amending the state constitution to limit backdoor borrowing and control state
debt by broadening the debt cap and requiring voter approval of capital debt
backed by revenue.
● Enacting a nearly $300 million annual tax cut for New York taxpayers by
indexing the State’s income tax brackets, standard deduction, and dependent
exemptions to inflation.
● Saving middle-class taxpayers roughly $650 million, simplifying the tax code, and
ending a regressive practice by eliminating “tax benefit recapture” provisions.
● Reducing property taxes by $2.3 billion by requiring the State to pick up the local
share of Medicaid outside of New York City over 5 years and local governments to
pass the savings along to property taxpayers.
● Providing direct relief to taxpayers by making the Property Tax Rebate program
permanent and returning billions of dollars to hardworking individuals and families.

Reducing the Cost of Living for Families and All Residents

● Reducing healthcare costs by phasing out the Health Care Reform Act’s
insurance taxes, which add nearly $2,000 in annual health coverage costs for a
family of four, and reforming Section 206 assessments.1
● Providing relief from heating costs by creating a refundable heating tax credit of
$300 per individual making under $125,000 in annual income and $600 per married
couple making under $250,000 in annual income.
● Reduce the cost of commuting and travel by extending the gas tax holiday.
● Addressing the exorbitant cost of childcare by:
○ increasing childcare assistance subsidies for working families while ensuring
income eligibility standards account for regional differences in the cost of
living;
○ supporting a strong childcare workforce by implementing apprenticeship
programs and designing career pathways; and
○ expanding the supply of childcare by reducing non-safety and health-related
regulations, and supporting capital investments in building new sites,

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https://www.empirecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/HCRA-2020-Final.pdf

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 expediting the process for establishing new childcare businesses, and further
incentivizing employer-sponsored/provided care options.
● Aiding commuters by repealing the current congestion pricing scheme that will
cost people commuting into the Business District of Manhattan $1 billion annually.
● Lowering housing costs by:
○ creating successors to New York City’s 421-A and J-51 programs;
○ establishing a program where the State may pre-approve parcels for housing
development and waiving certain regulations for projects that create ten or
more homes and/or apartments upon a municipality’s request;
○ forgoing top-down mandates and instead incentivize localities to relax local
zoning to allow for the development of more and more affordable housing;
and
○ streamlining the development process by reforming the State Environmental
Quality Review Act to speed up the approval of housing developments.

Improving New York’s Worst-in-the-Nation Business Climate

● Taking action to protect businesses from Unemployment Insurance Tax

increases resulting from pandemic-related job losses by adjusting rates, paying
down the deficit, and creating an Unemployment Insurance Solvency Reserve Fund.
● Setting a goal to eliminate one-third of all State regulations in three years by
simplifying and streamlining the State’s rulemaking and licensing practices,
reforming the State’s project-killing development process, fast-tracking the appeals
process, and reining in overzealous State agencies.
● Providing a $464 million tax cut for our small businesses by:
○ Increasing the corporate tax threshold from $390,000 to $500,000 and
lowering the rate to 2.5 percent.
○ Expanding the small business exemption to all PIT businesses regardless of
whether they have employees.
○ Increasing the threshold to $500,000, the exemption to 15 percent, and the
exemption to 20 percent for farmers.

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 ● Strengthening New York’s manufacturing sector by extending the zero-percent
corporate franchise tax rate to small-to-medium-sized manufacturers currently
paying among the highest tax rates in the nation.
● Reducing mandates on businesses of all sizes and making New York more
competitive by bringing the State’s excessive salaried overtime threshold ($58,500
downstate and $48,750 upstate) in line with the federal threshold ($35,568) and
fighting against further minimum wage increases.
● Re-thinking our approach to economic development by moving away from
ineffective and costly large, incentive-laden projects to focus on growing
small-to-medium-sized businesses through best practices such as customized job
training, manufacturing extension services, and expanding small business
development assistance.
● Rolling back disastrous policies within the “Farmworker Fair Labor Practices Act”
such as the Farm Laborers Wage Board decision to lower the overtime threshold to
40 hours.
● Supporting our Farms by:
○ making the Farm Workforce Retention Credit permanent;
○ creating a refundable investment tax credit for agriculture;
○ investing in new meat, vegetable, fruit, and seafood processing facilities in
New York; and
○ supporting Made in New York products.

Enacting Climate Policies that Ensure Access to Affordable, Reliable, and Clean
Energy

● Requiring independent cost studies and full transparency of all proposals from
the Climate Action Council, especially on proposals mandating energy producers
to raise utility rates, before a vote by the legislature.
● Supporting diverse energy sources by:
○ recognizing the importance of natural gas and biofuels;
○ providing parity to zero-emissions technologies (ex. hydroelectric, nuclear) by
utilizing technology-agnostic standards and targets;

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 ○ investing in and welcoming burgeoning technologies such as next-generation
nuclear and hydrogen; and
○ rapidly phasing out tax incentives/subsidies when technologies have
matured and gained market self-sufficiency.
● Keeping needed power supply online to ensure the reliability of our grid by
enacting a temporary moratorium on the State shutting down any energy-producing
facilities unless public safety is directly threatened while alternatives become more
reliable or come online.
● Repealing and opposing costly and anti-market mandates on consumers such
as the ban on new internal combustion engines after 2035.

A More Free New York

Upholding the Rights of New Yorkers

● Protecting private property rights by opposing so-called “Good Cause Eviction”

legislation and rolling back rent regulation.
● Standing up for New Yorkers against overreach by opposing unnecessary and
inappropriate government mandates and protecting our state and federal
constitutional rights.
● Protecting parental rights by ensuring school officials are transparent,
communicate properly, and include parents in decisions regarding their child, and
by protecting and expanding school choice

Improving State Governance and Restoring Accountability

● Reforming government in the Legislative and Executive Branches.

● Bringing more transparency and efficiency to the budgeting process and
reducing the influence of special interest by:
○ creating a Legislative Budget Office to provide objective, non-partisan
analysis, requiring the budget to be balanced in terms of generally accepted
accounting principles (GAAP);
○ limiting the use of messages of necessity;
○ putting in place new reporting requirements for lump sum allocations;

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 ○ enforcing quarterly reporting requirements; and
○ limiting non-budget legislation included in the State Budget.
● Improving oversight by fully funding the Authorities Budget Office (ABO) and fully
restoring the Comptroller’s authority in law to pre-emptively review all state
contracts.
● Eliminating the undue influence of the executive on the Office of Inspector
General by requiring the Inspector General be appointed to a two-year term by a
majority vote of the Governor, the Attorney General, the State Comptroller, the
Temporary President of the Senate, the Speaker of the Assembly, the Minority
Leader of the Senate and the Minority Leader of the Assembly.

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