Paul Szmal: We welcome in-state Senator Pam Helming for her usual visit here on FLX Morning. Senator, good morning. Hope the day's going well for you so far.
Guest: Good morning, Paul. Yes, the day's going excellent so far. We're recording this on the last day of April, and it's expected that yet another budget extender is going to be passed, so that's going to put us, what, to five weeks late?
Paul Szmal: Yes, we're a month late now with the budget. Yesterday we passed the eighth budget extender, so this is the latest budget during Governor Hochul's term. This is going to be frustrating for you as a member of the GOP constituency, because there's really not anything that you can do in this situation, is there?
Guest: I think there's a lot that we can do. Yesterday on the Senate floor during the budget extender presentation, I asked questions about rural health care, about what's in the extender, what's not. I brought up the fact that New York State received $212 million in Rural Transformation Program funding from the federal government. We were awarded that back in December. We have until September to actually allocate that money and get it spent, and it takes some time to do that, and it can't begin, that process can't begin until the New York State budget is passed. I think my role is very important as a minority conference member to bring up the issues. Not only did I bring up the challenges with the Rural Transformation Grant Program and how our rural hospitals need that funding, but I also brought up, because when we ask questions about what's the status of the budget, we get kind of flip answers. Well, we're progressing, but nothing more specific than that. I also brought up yesterday how our schools are legally required to start putting out public notices about their budgets on Monday. On Monday, school budget votes will occur on May 19th, so schools are forced into this situation on trying to guess what they can anticipate in funding from the state government, and it shouldn't be that way, because at the end of the day, the people who are impacted with the late budget are the taxpayers, are the students, and Paul, not to keep going on, but also I brought up yesterday on the floor the impact to our local governments. Again, they don't know what they can anticipate in terms of funding from the state. They don't know which grant programs they'll be eligible for, and so we have such a short construction season already in upstate New York, and to have delays because of the budget, because the governor and the legislative leaders can't get their acts together and get this passed, it pushes out projects, and the more what I've been seeing over the last few years, the more we delay projects, the higher the cost goes. So again, all impacts to taxpayers, and it's frustrating to me, and I made this point on the Senate floor as well, that all of my colleagues, both sides of the aisle, are talking about how we need to address cost of living and affordability in our state. The best way we can do that as legislators is to get a budget passed that includes measures to reduce costs for the everyday person.
Paul Szmal: We're talking with State Senator Pam Helming here on FLX Morning. I want to turn our attention to a conference that you had on the PROTECT Act, and one of the participants is actually Representative Todd Hood, who is running for lieutenant governor.
Guest: Yes, so I've been working on the PROTECT Act. I've traveled across the state of New York. I've held press conferences over the last year in western New York, in the Finger Lakes region, in central New York, down on Long Island, and then this week I held my final press conference for this session in Albany, and I was joined by representatives of the New York State Sheriff's Association, including Sheriff Todd Hood from Madison County, who's also running for lieutenant governor. Sheriff Sorrencione was one of my speakers. Sheriff Todd Baxter from Monroe County. We probably, we had at least a couple of dozen sheriffs who were there, because this bill is about common sense. It's about keeping those repeat and violent offenders off of our streets, so we have a ton of support. Like I said, I've been working on this for over a year, hoping that the governor will include this in her final enacted budget.
Paul Szmal: Let's talk about your constituent survey. We referenced this last time we had a conversation that the survey was going out. Have you had a chance now to compile the data and get some results?
Guest: We have. We had about 3,500 people who responded to my survey. Primarily the responses came to us electronically over my website, but we did have several hundred people who submitted paper copies, and we've now gone through and entered all of that data. I would say there are no significant changes from last year. The majority of people are still reporting that they feel that New York State is headed in the wrong direction, and they're not getting their money's worth for the taxes that they pay. So I think everything I heard about affordability through my survey, cost of housing, highest taxes, the cost of energy, unfortunately nothing was surprising. Those are the calls I get from people every single day, but it reaffirms my commitment to the legislation that I carry and also to the debates that I lead on the Senate floor and the communications with the governor and everyone else. We need to take some significant action in the legislature again to make New York State more affordable for everyday people. You know, our seniors are living on fixed income, so many of them. They can't continue to absorb property tax increases, utility hikes, and the cost of food going up, and everything else. So I have a nice plan to reduce costs in all those areas. If anyone's interested, they can find it on my website or they can give my office a call.
Paul Szmal: As usual, you've been balancing not only legislative sessions with traveling around attending various different events here in the area. One of those was the Ontario County DA's Crime Victims Week ceremony.
Guest: Yes, that is an annual ceremony, and I was honored to be asked to come back this year by our new DA, McBride, to speak at the event. It's really, it's moving. When you hear the stories and the experiences of victims or victims' families, and then the stories of law enforcement, child protective services, and others, like what they go to through to support victims, but also to bring justice. It's just, I have so much, such a deep respect for all of them and the incredible work that they do. It is, I can't imagine how challenging it is. But this year's guest speaker was Sarah Palermo, and I've known Sarah about 10 years now. Sarah is a victim herself. Her daughter, Lindsay, she was just 26 years old. She was stopped at a red light. Her fiance was actually in a car in front of her. Lindsay was behind him, stopped at this red light when a drunk driver driving, I think it was 106 miles per hour, plowed into the back of her car, and Lindsay was killed. That had such an impact on me when I heard that story, first heard that story from Sarah, because Lindsay was around the age of my own kids at that time. And to see how Sarah has transformed that tragedy into something positive. She speaks to victims. She works on, she comes up with ideas for legislation. She's just been an incredible advocate for raising awareness and saving lives.
Paul Szmal: You have a couple of other events coming up on the docket, one of which is the Women of Distinction Ceremony that's taking place next week.
Guest: Yes, the Women of Distinction Ceremony is an opportunity to recognize outstanding women from across the state of New York. So each senator is invited to recognize one outstanding female from their district. And this year, and I don't believe it's been announced yet, so drumroll please. My woman is Megan Frida. She's the president of Embrace Your Sisters. She just does an outstanding job. Embrace Your Sisters provides services to people, financial services, any type of assistance that they need when they're going through cancer treatment. So Megan got involved. Her mother had breast cancer, and that was, you know, one thing led to the next. And this organization now, I believe it's run by all volunteers. They have distributed more than $700,000. Again, it's all volunteer operation, all donations to families and individuals battling cancer. And Megan, I'm just, she's so representative of so many women out there who do these incredible projects and take care of others in their spare time. Megan works full time for Wegmans. She, like I said, is represented so many women who balance family, careers, and also all of these outside interests. So I'm so proud to have her as my next woman of distinction.
Paul Szmal: And one of your causes that's been near and dear to your heart, Senator, over the years has been our men and women that work in the various volunteer or paid fire departments around the region. We're getting to the fire department banquet season, so I'm sure you have plans to attend a few of those.
Guest: Yes, it's, I have to tell you, this is one of the things that causes me great anxiety on Saturday evenings. Like last weekend, I was invited to seven fire department banquets. And my district is, it's pretty big. And I, there's no way I can make it to all of them. So I try to be fair in calculating where I should go, try to, you know, every other year, make sure I'm hitting different banquets. And then some of it is just on location. Last weekend, last Saturday, I was able to attend the Farmington Fire Department Banquet. They have several outstanding volunteers who received service awards. And then from Farmington, I went over to the Alton Fire Department to celebrate their 100th anniversary.
Paul Szmal: Senator Helming's Banquet Tour 2026.
Guest: Exactly, exactly. But you know, I did a resolution for the Alton Fire Department. Resolutions are captured in New York State history books, and I thought it was important to capture their 100 years of service. But reading through the resolution and how things have changed over the years, the equipment, and how we notify volunteers when their services are needed, everything has changed, right? But as I was listening to the chief talk about all the changes, in my mind, I kept looking around the room at all the volunteers and just thinking, there's something significant that really hasn't changed. And that's the dedication of the people who step up to volunteer. Just that, that passion that they have, that heart that they have, and the strength that they have to do that day after day, night after night. It's just incredible. And I'm so thankful to all of our firefighters, our EMS workers, and members of law enforcement.
Paul Szmal: And having some fire official or fire department members and EMTs on my wife's side of the family, I appreciate the fact that you appreciate the services that they offer as well. With that, we'll wrap up our conversation here. As always, we appreciate your time, Senator, and we'll talk again next month.
Guest: Thank you, Paul.
