LAC Both Pleased and Frustrated by NYS' Final FY25 Budget as Significant Funding for ATI and Reentry Services is Sustained Yet Additional Progressive Anti-Carceral Policies[...]

Albany, NY - As New York continues to feel the impacts of mass incarceration, the overdose crisis, and rising mental health needs, the final FY 2025 budget includes important provisions that will allow for the continued scaling of transformative alternatives to incarceration and effective reentry supports statewide.

"While LAC is thrilled to see several provisions that both continue and expand funding for alternatives to incarceration proven to reduce recidivism, enhance public safety, and reduce overall costs, we are disappointed that legislators used this budget to create a whole host of new crimes, which will disproportionately harm low-income and New Yorkers of color. Unfortunately, in this budget, the State has taken major steps backward by adopting so-called 'tough on crime' rhetoric and penalties that fly in the face of pragmatic public safety measures," says LAC's Sr. Director for NYS Policy, Megan French-Marcelin. "Further, the omission of several progressive anti-carceral policies included in the one house budgets, such as legislation authorizing drug-checking services, are wasted opportunities that we hope and will work hard to see re-upped in the last weeks of the legislative session."

"Despite our disappointment with some omissions, we were extremely pleased that the final budget baselined last year's historic increases for ATI and reentry services, and indeed added additional funding, while omitting scheduling any new substances," says Paul N. Samuels, LAC's Director & President. "LAC and our partners spent weeks advocating with the Governor and legislators about the enormous benefits of bringing ATI and reentry to scale as well as the potential harms of scheduling more than four dozen new substances. We are grateful that the State's policymakers continued to move forward by expanding needed services without adopting scheduling, which would not have been an effective way to address the overdose crisis and would only further criminalize Black, brown, and low-income New Yorkers. Working together, we can continue to foster a health-first approach to the ongoing addiction epidemic and build a healthier, safer, and more equitable New York for all."

Christine Khaikin, LAC Sr. Health Policy Attorney adds, "While we are disappointed the State missed the opportunity to include specific policies to address the overdose crisis in this budget, we look forward to working with the Governor and Legislature on key reforms outside the budget process, including improving parity enforcement of substance use disorder and mental health care coverage across all health plans. For instance, the State's inclusion in this budget of new reimbursement requirements for outpatient addiction and mental health care in commercial insurance promises to increase access to in-network care for New Yorkers with private health plans, and there are several additional such efforts we are committed to advancing in the coming months."

Provisions in the State's final budget that LAC supports include:

• Continued backing of alternatives to incarceration and reentry programs through baselined funding of $31.42 million for ATI and $11.526 million for reentry, as well as an additional appropriation of $7.2 million for ATI, reentry, and other community-based alternatives by the Senate;
• $14.6 million allocated for Forensic Assertive Community Treatment (FACT) teams, which provide behavioral health and social support services to people with recent involvement in the criminal legal system (CLS);
• $2.8 million allocated to specialized housing for CLS-involved people with serious mental illness;
• $3 million to the Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS) for vocational training;
• Requirement that commercial insurers raise reimbursement rates for in-network Office of Mental Health (OMH) and OASAS-licensed outpatient SUD and MH treatment services;
• Continued funding for the ombudsman program, CHAMP (Community Health Access to Addiction and Mental Healthcare Project);
• A 2.84% COLA for human service workers, including those under OASAS and OMH; and
• $86.2 million to be allocated via the Opioid Settlement Fund based on the advisory board's recommendations, as well as extension of the Opioid Stewardship Fund to 2029.

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Media contact below:

Arianne Keegan, Director of Communications
Legal Action Center
[email protected]
(212) 243-1313

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