Lawmakers outline human services, labor priorities ahead of state budget negotiations

Senator Roxanne Persaud, co-chair of the Human Services and Labor Subcommittee, and Assemblymember Andrew Hevesy, the subcommittee's co-chair, convened legislators to summarize each house's human services and labor priorities as the state moves into final budget negotiations.

The hearing focused on proposals included in the one-house budgets from the Senate and Assembly and on specific programs that lawmakers said must be preserved or expanded in the enacted budget. "We've been hearing for a while the crisis in childcare," said Senator Jabari Brisport, chair of the Committee on Children and Families, identifying workforce pay and slot preservation as urgent items. Brisport cited the Senate proposal for $500,000,000 for the childcare workforce and the Assembly's $212,500,000 proposal to preserve childcare slots.

The subcommittee emphasized a 7.8% human services cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) included in the one-house budgets and said the COLA should cover roughly 20 additional state contract lines, among them domestic violence programs, crisis services, independent living centers, supportive housing programs and maternal, infant and early childhood home visiting programs. "We have spoken about the COLA over and over and over and I think we have to continue speaking about a COLA," Persaud said.

Unemployment…