Late Monday, Governor Kathy Hochul announced an agreement has been reached with legislative leaders on key priorities in the Fiscal Year 2026 New York State Budget.
“I promised New Yorkers to fight like hell to put money back in their pockets and make our streets and subways safer. That’s exactly what this budget will do,” Governor Hochul said. “Working with our partners in the Legislature we’ve reached an agreement to pass a balanced, fiscally responsible budget. Good things take time, and this budget is going to make a real difference for New York families.”
The Governor’s Office released “highlights of the 2026 State Budget”:
Highlights of the Fiscal Year 2026 Budget include:
- A $1 billion tax cut for middle-class and low-income New Yorkers, bringing tax rates to their lowest levels in nearly 70 years.
- Delivering a sweeping increase to the Child Tax Credit by giving eligible families a $1,000 credit for kids younger than 4 years old and a $500 credit for kids ages 4-16, effectively doubling the credit for the average family
- Expanding access to child care by investing $2.2 billion statewide, including a $350 million investment to save child care subsidies for tens of thousands of New York City families.
- Sending New York’s first-ever Inflation Refund checks, which will dedicate $2 billion to provide direct cash assistance to more than 8 million New Yorkers with checks of up to $400 per family.
- Reducing the Payroll Mobility Tax for small businesses, and eliminating it for self-employed individuals earning $150,000 or less.
- Providing $340 million to ensure free breakfast and lunch for every K-12 student in New York, saving families an average of $1,600 per child.
- Investing a record $357 million in gun violence prevention programs that have helped drive gun violence down by more than 50% when compared to pandemic-era peaks.
- Fixing the discovery laws to support victims and survivors, and reduce the number of cases being thrown out on technicalities, while investing $120 million in funding for discovery law compliance for prosecutors and defense attorneys.
- Creating a new Class B misdemeanor to crack down on individuals who use a mask to conceal their identity when committing a Class A misdemeanor or higher crime or fleeing the scene immediately after committing such a crime.
- Making our subways safer by investing $77 million for police officers on every overnight subway train, installing platform barriers and LED lighting and allocating $25 million for welcome centers to connect homeless individuals with services and care.
- Strengthening involuntary commitment, improving Kendra’s Law and investing $16.5 million in Assisted Outpatient Treatment and $2 million in OMH staffing to ensure people with severe mental illness get compassionate care.
- Strengthening the continuum of mental health care by investing $160 million to create a 100 new forensic inpatient psychiatric beds in New York City.
- Setting a statewide bell-to-bell distraction-free schools policy with a $13.5 million investment to help schools operationalize bans on smart phone and other internet enabled devices usage during the school day, making New York the largest state in the nation with a bell-to-bell ban.
With a conceptual agreement in place, the legislative houses are expected to pass bills that will enact these priorities in the coming days.
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