I hope your summer is off to a fantastic start! We recently finished the legislative session in Albany, and I wanted to give you an update on the progress we’ve made to make our state more affordable, livable, and safer for New Yorkers from Buffalo to Brookhaven.
Every day, I’m fighting to create a stronger state — and that means making sure all 20 million New Yorkers, whether they live in our smallest hamlet or biggest city, have the support they need to thrive. And I’m proud to share that this session, we once again took action to help communities in the Southern Tier.
This year, we continued to prioritize funding for our economic development initiatives, including programs like FAST NY, which helps develop sites across the state to attract large employers and high-tech manufacturing companies to New York — and which has already awarded projects in Broome and Chemung counties with a combined $15.3 million.
Other major projects that will support communities in the Southern Tier include:
- Launching Empire AI, a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence center, at Binghamton University and Cornell University.
- Giving much-needed financial relief to the millions of New Yorkers living with diabetes by eliminating co-pays for insulin.
- $400 million for the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF), which builds on our efforts to combat the climate crisis.
This session, we took a historic step forward to protect the mental health and well-being of our young people with nation-leading legislation to protect our kids from addictive social media feeds and shield their personal data from predatory companies.
And through our budget, we cracked down on persistent crime like retail theft and hate crimes, enacted a once-in-a-generation plan to build more housing and make housing more affordable, made historic investments in our schools, and took action to help New Yorkers keep more of their hard-earned cash — including making New York the first state in the nation to offer paid prenatal leave, all without raising income taxes a penny.
Click here to learn more about all of the investments in our FY2025 budget.
I’m working to make New York State stronger for all who call our great state home, and look forward to sharing more updates on our efforts soon.
Ever Upward,
Gov. Kathy Hochul
