Initial Look at the FY 2026-27 ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿ State Budget
May 27, 2026
The NYS Legislature passed its remaining budget bills very early this morning, and your Alliance for Rights and Recovery wanted to provide our members with a firsthand look at several key items of special interest to you. We will provide a more comprehensive overview shortly once we have had additional time to fully review and analyze the final budget bills and accompanying language.
2.7% Targeted Inflationary Increase
We are very pleased to see the Legislature and Governor include a 2.7% targeted inflationary increase for human services providers, amounting to an additional $100 million in all. Alliance staff are proud to have played a central role in securing this increase, distributing advocacy materials to every state legislator multiple times each week and participating in almost daily demonstrations and news conferences throughout the budget process. We want to extend special thanks to our friends at the Mental Health Association in ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿ State for their unflagging leadership throughout this effort.
This increase is critically important to helping our members to help stabilize and strengthen the workforce, improve continuity of relationships between providers and people receiving services, and ensure that more people can access the mental health and substance use services they need within their communities. As ever, far more funding is needed but this victory was a very important one in a very complicated and contentious budget session.
$8 Million for Daniel’s Law Pilot Programs
Another major priority advanced in this year’s budget is continued investment in Daniel’s Law initiatives that send trained mental health crisis professionals, instead of police officers, to support people in their most vulnerable moments and get them the help they need.
The budget includes an additional $8 million for new pilot programs on top of the three pilot programs awarded earlier this year inRochester, Long Island, and Jefferson County. However, we are disappointed that additional funding was not included to sustain the Behavioral Health Crisis Technical Assistance Center (BHTAC), which plays a critical role in helping localities move toward non-police crisis response systems by supporting implementation, training, best-practice development, and coordination across pilot sites.
The Alliance will continue advocating for the infrastructure needed to support these landmark pilot programs and lay the groundwork for statewide expansion of non-police crisis response systems. We also want to thank the broader Daniel’s Law Coalition for its tireless advocacy in pushing for this funding and continued momentum toward full passage and implementation of Daniel’s Law. We continue this work in memory of Daniel Prude and in support of his family. The Alliance remains dedicated and very proud to play a central role in supporting and advancing the coalition’s efforts.
Housing
The budget also includes $71 million in additional funding to support existing housing programs and services. This includes $38 million for scatter-site housing increases, $28 million for Community Residence Single Room Occupancy (CR-SRO) and Supportive SRO programs to address ongoing deficit funding challenges, and $5 million for Office of Addiction Services and Supports supportive housing programs. These investments are critically important to helping providers maintain stable housing opportunities for people with mental health and substance use challenges and preventing further erosion of ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿â€™s community housing infrastructure. We will share additional details on funding for housing programs as we examine other areas it is included in the budget.
Funding to Support Advocacy for Adult Home Residents
We are also pleased to see restoration of funding for the Adult Home Resident Advocacy and Resident Council programs that provide essential support and protections for residents across ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿ State, as well as direct funding for resident organizing. We are continuing to look for the restoration of critical funding for the Coalition of Institutionalized Aged and Disabled (CIAD)
Priorities not in Budget
At the same time, there were several major priorities that were not included in the final budget. These include the Carve Out of Behavioral Health Services from Medicaid Managed Care, an issue the Alliance will continue to advocate for along with campaign leaders ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿ State Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare. We continue to push for this deeply needed change to our system through legislation during the remaining days of session.
Going forward, we will also continue our advocacy for:
- Passage of the Forensic Rehabilitation Act
- Funding for the prison oversight through the Correction Association of ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿
- Creation of a State Hospital Rightsizing Commission to reinvest savings into the community-based recovery system
- Sustained funding for Self-Directed Care programs across ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿ State
While this budget contains meaningful victories secured through persistent advocacy, there is still significant work ahead to ensure that more ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿ers can access a comprehensive, recovery-oriented, community-based mental health and substance use system.
We are very proud of the sustained advocacy our members put forth, from participating in our regional forums, our Annual Albany Legislative Day, meetings with your local legislators and participating in a number of online and phone advocacy actions. We are very grateful for the very active leadership of our regional coordinators and members of our Public Policy Committee.
Above all, very special thanks are due to the tireless efforts of our Vice President for Public Policy Luke Sikinyi and longtime Alliance advocate Robert Dodge this session: they were instrumental to our successes and will continue to push for our shared priorities throughout the year!
Stay tuned for more information later today about the budget and continued advocacy around our priorities.