LeadingAge New York Adviser Adviser LeadingAge NewYork Spring 2019 final | Page 34

One
Voice
Historic Session Poses Challenges
T
he November 2018 elections resulted in the Democrats sweeping many statewide races
and winning control of the State Senate for the first time since 2010. Of the 63 Senate
seats, Democrats now hold 40 and Republicans hold 23, and 18 of these members are brand
new to state government. The State Assembly also welcomed 24 new members. The 2019
Legislative Session subsequently proved to be challenging, since there were so many new
legislators that knew very little about the long term care sector.
Ami Schnauber
Much of our work included educating legislators about long term care generally and the
providers we represent. In fact, my team and I traveled the state to meet with lawmakers
in their district offices along with our members. Inevitably, the bulk of our advocacy
work centered on stopping or seeking amendments to bad bills rather than pursuing our
legislative initiatives such as thne expansion of the role of the nurse in the Adult Care
Facility (ACF), medication technicians in nursing homes and funding for housing with
services.
With that said, we can celebrate some successes this year. We were successful in getting
several important bills passed in both houses, which will go to the Governor over the
coming months for consideration. They include:
CCRC Revitalization Bill: A.8193 (Schimminger)/S.1803-A (Rivera) aims to
consolidate authority for establishment and operational oversight of Continuing Care
Retirement Communities (CCRCs) into the Department of Health (DOH) and eliminate
barriers to the development, expansion and efficient operation of CCRCs in New York.
In-Service Registry: A.7854 (Gottfried)/S.5605 (Rivera) adds the record of each
home care worker’s required annual in-service training to the Home Care Worker Registry,
helping to expedite the hiring process of new home care workers.
We expect to see a large push for Prevailing
Wage and Nurse Staffing Ratios. We will
need to take the summer and fall months to
educate lawmakers on the impact that these
bills would have on long term care and aging
services providers.
There were a handful of bills that we were concerned about, but we
were successful in getting critical amendments included to protect
our members’ interests. They include:
HIPPA Security Breach: A.5635-B (DenDekker)/S.5575-B
(Thomas) broadens the scope of information covered under the
notification law, updates the notification requirements when
there has been a breach of data and broadens the definition of a
data breach to include an unauthorized person gaining access to
information.
Rent Reform Package: A.8281 (Heastie)/S.6458 (Stewart-
Cousins) the “Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of
2019” extends and makes certain provisions of law permanent relating to rent control and
rent stabilization. As was anticipated, the package of bills includes a provision on security
deposits, but the final provision included our proposed language exempting certain housing
and services providers from increased security deposit regulations. Specifically, it exempts
CCRCs, assisted living providers, ACFs, senior residential communities and not-for-profit
independent retirement communities.
Finally, we were successful at getting several problematic bills stalled this year, including:
Prevailing Wage: A.1261 (Bronson)/S.1947 (Ramos) would impose public works
“prevailing wage” requirements on most types of private sector projects receiving any level
(See Historic Session on page 34)
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Adviser a publication of LeadingAge New York | Spring 2019