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Alliance alert: As ����������’s state budget continues to be delayed well past the April 1 deadline, critical decisions about funding priorities remain unresolved, decisions that will directly impact the strength and sustainability of our mental health and substance use service system.

Recent reporting on the push to overhaul Tier 6 pensions highlights the immense influence of public sector unions and the willingness of state leaders to consider costly proposals, with estimates reaching $1.5 billion annually. While we respect the role of unions and the importance of fair compensation, it is deeply frustrating to see such significant increases gain traction while the nonprofit mental health and substance use sector, long referred to as the state’s “indirect workforce,”continues to be underfunded and overlooked.

Our sector carries an enormous share of responsibility. Nonprofit providers serve far greater numbers of individuals, often with more complex needs, and require sustained, long-term engagement to support recovery and stability. Unlike state-operated systems, which primarily serve individuals once they are already hospitalized, community-based providers must find, engage, and support people where they are, often before crises escalate. This work is essential to reducing hospitalizations, strengthening communities, and improving outcomes.

And yet, despite this critical role, our workforce continues to lag behind. At a time when other sectors are advancing major funding increases, we are still fighting for a modest but necessary 4% targeted inflationary increase to stabilize services, retain staff, and meet growing demand.

If ���������� is serious about affordability, equity, and system transformation, it must invest in the very workforce that makes community-based support possible.

These issues will be front and center at our upcoming Executive Seminar, where representatives from the ���������� State Office of Mental Health will discuss how current budget proposals, along with prior state investments, are intended to strengthen the continuum of mental health and substance use services. This will be a critical opportunity to better understand what’s at stake and how we can collectively advocate for a system that prioritizes community services, workforce sustainability, and long-term recovery.

The time to act is now. We must ensure that this year’s final budget reflects the true needs of ����������ers and the providers who serve them every day.

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Opposing Tier 6 Changes is a Lonely Stance in Albany
By Nick Reisman | Politico | April 13, 2026

The labor-led drive to overhaul the Tier 6 pension category is steamrolling through the state Capitol — with few officials disagreeing with powerful unions seeking to lower the retirement age and reduce employee contributions.

It’s a disheartening development for Republican Assemblymember Michael Fitzpatrick, a Long Island lawmaker who is perhaps the most vocal and rare opponent to changing the pension.

A former financial services worker, Fitzpatrick knows firsthand how pension costs can become unwieldy. But his legislative colleagues have become, in effect, captured by higher pay and strict limits on how much money they can earn in the private sector, Fitzpatrick believes. Opposing politically active unions can be a career killer for state lawmakers in both parties.

“You now, in a sense, have a professional Legislature,” Fitzpatrick said in an interview. “That’s right where the unions want us. You’re asking the legislators to vote against their own financial best interest. So who is going to say no to the alphabet soup of unions when, if I lose, I’m out of the pension system.”

The Tier 6 fight is testing the clout of the state’s influential public employee unions — including groups that represent teachers, state workers and municipal employees. The unions are communicating directly with their members, urging them to lobby lawmakers for the changes. The aggressive push, though, is meeting little bipartisan resistance. Legislators and Gov. Kathy Hochul attended an Albany rally staged by unions last month in support of overhauling Tier 6.

Public-sector labor leaders want to lower the retirement age to 55 after 30 years of service and reduce how much workers pay into the system depending on their income. As it now stands, contribution rates into the pension fund top out at 6 percent of a worker’s take-home pay; a union-backed proposal would lower contributions to as low as 3 percent for employees earning less than $75,000.

Union officials have also made clear they intend to weigh Tier 6 support heavily when considering endorsements this election year. United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew  that the pension push will “absolutely” be part of the group’s endorsement consideration.

All told, the changes are expected  for school districts, local governments and the state government.

Those costs will, in turn, be shouldered in many cases by property taxpayers just as Hochul and the Democratic-controlled Legislature press for affordability measures in state budget talks.

“I know how the system works,” Fitzpatrick said. “We are creating a math problem. We cannot in my opinion vote for this and claim affordability.”

But Fitzpatrick’s opposition to Tier 6 is largely an outlier among the 213 members of the Legislature. Few Republicans have been vocal about their concerns with changing the pension tier and the potential impact on one of the highest taxed states in the country.

“Raising the legislature’s salary to $142,000 has changed the calculation around what should be public service,” said Ken Girardin, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a fiscally conservative think tank. “That’s increased the electoral anxiety level for lawmakers and that’s created an opening for the unions to demand crazier stuff.”

Tier 6 was created in 2012 at the behest of then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo with the long-term goal of easing pension costs — especially for local governments and school districts producing budgets that limited how much they could raise from property taxes. Unions blasted the pension change and over the years have fought to chip away at the intended savings.

Fiscal hawks warn that the depth of the changes being sought by labor this time will further drive up costs.

“No one can credibly say they’re advancing affordability in ���������� when they’re also sweetening public pensions and driving up property taxes,” Girardin said.