The month of March focused on the final push for 3-way agreements on the NYS Budget, due on March 31st. The NYS Senate and Assembly released their one-house budgets and the formation of Conference Committees set the table for final negotiations and decisions on how much money each committee has to spend, and how it will be spent. The proverbial “three people in a room”, consisting of Governor Kathy Hochul, the NYS Senate Majority Leader, and the NYS Assembly Speaker consider input from Joint Budget Hearings, trade groups, and business leaders to assess the financial needs presented, balanced with available appropriations, to come to agreement on a final Budget. As of the writing of this report, the final Budget agreement, which is due on March 31st, has not been reached. It is looking like the Budget will be late, due to Good Friday on March 29th and Easter on March 31st.
The newly formed collaboration between the Northeastern Construction Trades Workforce Coalition (NCTWC) and the Lumber and Building Material Dealers Foundation (LBMDF) put together a joint request for grant assistance to build a School-to-Jobs Pipeline in LBM and construction trades industries. The grant would assist with investing in education, professional development, and certification, to bridge the skills gap in the LBM and construction trades industries, creating a sustainable pipeline from education to employment. We will be focusing on securing funds to advance this effort in the coming months.
Updates on Our Priority Legislative Issues:
The NRLA Legislative Committee met via Zoom on March 22nd. The goal of that meeting was to advance our legislative priorities and strategies around them.
Deforestation: New Bill Introduction: S.8898 (Similar to S.4859-A – Krueger/A.5682-A – Zebrowski of 2023 that was vetoed)
Following the veto of this legislation in 2023, Senator Liz Krueger has introduced a new bill in 2024, S.8898, that is modeled after last year’s “Deforestation” bill. It is renamed the “Tropical Rainforest Economic & Environmental Sustainability (TREES) Act; and it also establishes the supply chain transparency assistance program.
Some of the new provisions in this year’s bill include:
- Creates a new, time-limited exemption for ekki wood used by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the purpose of railroad ties in the New York City Transit system, as well as greenheart wood used by a ferry service directly owned and operated by an agency of a city of one million or more.
- Requires state contractors and subcontractors selling Tropical forest-risk commodities to the state to certify, after completing due diligence measures determined by the Office of General Services, that the commodity did not originate on land where tropical deforestation or tropicalforest degradation occurred on or after January 1st, 2023.
- Creates a broad exemption to the certification requirement in a situation where a state agency or authority fails to receive any offers in response to a solicitation for products covered by the bill. If such exemption is not used by an agency or authority for three consecutive years, that agency or authority will lose the ability to use the exemption going forward.
- Provides for exemptions if the contracting agency or authority determines that such a bid preference would be against the public interest, increase costs by an unreasonable amount, or that New York State products cannot be obtained in sufficient quantities.
We will be having conversations with legislators to oppose this bill once again.
Retail Theft: PPGG Budget Bill Part A and Part E – Governor’s Executive Budget Proposal
S.6334 / A.6810 (Mannion/Dinowitz) Creates the Office of Organized Retail Theft
The Senate and Assembly included variations of the Governor’s Executive Budget Proposal on Retail Theft in their one-house Budgets. As Budget negotiations continue, we will learn more about what aspects they finally come to agreement. There is a strong group of advocates that I have been working with, including the Retail Council of New York State, the Business Council, NFIB, Food Industry Alliance and three retail liquor store Associations to elevate the discussions on Retail Theft.
Unfair Business Competition
We have requested to meet with the NYS Department of Labor to start a dialogue with them on labor-related issues surrounding the Amish business practices regarding regulation of workers, worksites, and child labor concerns. We will also be reaching out to other state agencies to discuss sales tax, workers’ compensation, and building code-related concerns. This has been an ongoing issue for many years, and we are making a proactive effort to address the unfair competition with NRLA members.
Small Business Day
The Annual Small Business Day was held on March 19th, in Albany. Many small business owners spent the day lobbying their legislators on the following issues:
- Combatting retail theft (mentioned above);
- Unemployment Insurance (UI) Debt, which stands above $7 billion, and for which we are seeking $150 million to pay interest on the debt;
- Sunsetting the COVID Sick Leave Law. Recent CDC guidance was just adjusted to align Covid with guidance for illnesses like the flu or RSV which helps make the case for the sunset;
- Halting the devastating lawsuits over frequency of pay for manual workers. Under current Labor Law 191, employers are required to pay manual workers on a weekly basis. A recent court decision held that payment of wages to “manual” workers other than on a weekly basis is subject to a private right of action and equal to half of all wages paid up to six years. We support the Governor’ budget language that clarifies that liquidated damages are not applicable to past and future pay frequency violations. We asked the members of the Legislature to support the Governor’s proposal.;
- We opposed what the Legislature is proposing to help fund the Medicaid cuts in the budget. They want to have the Governor apply for a federal waiver and tax Managed Care Organizations to generate $4 billion. Cost that will definitely be passed on to businesses and individuals.
Retainage
Francis Palasieski, Dana Schnipper, and I had a conversation with Mike Misenhimer, Executive Director of the Northeastern Subcontractors Association (NESCA). NESCA has long supported our retainage bill. As has been reported in previous reports we decided to change our strategy in support of amending the new substantial completion law that applies to public and private contracts. Our point of view is that our work is done once materials have been delivered and accepted so it is therefore substantially complete for the purposes of release of retainage. A point was made about differentiating between materials and equipment. We are in the process of drafting language to that end and will then seek to have a bill introduced.