ADVOCATING FOR NEW YORK'S COUNTIES
Advocating on Behalf of New York’s Counties in 2022 By Ryan Gregoire, NYSAC Legislative Director
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YSAC’s mission is to represent, educate, advocate for, and serve member counties and the thousands of elected and appointed county officials who serve the public. To further that mission, the NYSAC Legislative Team works to analyze legislation, develop lobbying action plans, and coordinate NYSAC’s Legislative Agenda to advocate for counties with a unified voice. Each year, the NYSAC Legislative Team follows a timeline of budget and legislative work to be accomplished on behalf of our members. While the timeline typically aligns with the State Budget process and legislative calendar, this year will be a little bit different. During the 2021 Fall Seminar, the 12 NYSAC standing committees developed, discussed, and adopted a series of resolutions that became the basis of NYSAC’s 2022 legislative program, including our legislative agenda, fact sheets, and whitepapers. In fact, this year, NYSAC revamped the website to be more user friendly, and in doing so, created a new advocacy landing page as a one-stop shop for all NYSAC policy content. We didn’t stop at just redesigning the website. The legislative and communications team spearheaded an ambitious overhaul of the county advocacy platform. The new legislative program for 2022 has been redesigned to make it easier to understand and is broken down by issue areas impacting county government service delivery. This new program will make it easier and more efficient for county leaders to advocate for county priorities, and for lawmakers to understand the county perspective. Once finalized, NYSAC expands on the legislative program to provide supporting material and data for each item. We then schedule meetings with representatives from the New York State Division on Budget (DOB) to share our members’ budgetrelated requests as well as meet with senior leadership in both chambers of the State Legislature.
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NYSAC News | Winter 2022
JANUARY January marks the beginning of the New York State Legislative Session. The Session begins the first Wednesday after the first Monday of the New Year. The opening is usually marked by the Governor's delivery of the "State of the State Message" in Albany. In a return to the historic delivery of this address, Governor Hochul spoke to New Yorkers from the Assembly chamber — “the people’s house” — in the Capitol building. This message outlines the priorities and programs the Governor wants the Legislature to address during the year ahead. The Governor must submit her Executive Budget proposal to the Legislature, along with the related appropriation, revenue, and budget bills, by the third week in January (or by February 1st in a gubernatorial election year). Once the Governor’s Executive Budget proposal is released, NYSAC’s Legislative Team identifies key issues for counties within, or excluded from, the Executive Budget proposal. The Legislative Team then develops a lobbying plan for each issue. This involves analyzing the bills, obtaining county feedback and data, and organizing strategic meetings with the Legislature, staff, DOB, and the Governor’s Office. If there are any major county-involved items within (or excluded from) the Executive Budget proposal but not part of our Legislative Platform, the Legislative Team drafts resolutions to be presented to the proper standing committee during the Legislative Conference in March. While the budget process continues, new bills are introduced daily by members of the Legislature. The Legislative Team reviews daily introductions, reviews committee reports, and responds accordingly with memos in support or opposition.
