Governor Hochul: “I know Long Island, I know what you talk about, I've been to your barbecues. You talk about the potholes all the time. Everybody's complaining about potholes. No one has hit more potholes in the State of New York than I have, because I've traveled 372,000 miles, not by plane, all on the road. And so, I've had a personal encounter and I said, “They're the most welcoming, they give me this big welcome when I'm on Long Island, because they're enormous.” So we're coming at them.”
Hochul: “We'll not only recover from this pandemic, we’ll emerge stronger than before, because I have a dream. I have a dream I spoke about my first day. I said, it's not just about people coming here for the American dream, like so many did like my grandparents fleeing poverty. There's also the New York dream that once you're here, we've got to protect your rights. We honor you as individuals, and we're going to make sure that you have the best life, not just for yourselves, but for your children and grandchildren. And I believe that this budget, this particular budget, is a blueprint for that path forward. And yes, indeed, my friends, it is a new era for New York.”
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul announced regional investments of the FY 2023 budget to deliver for Long Island families. Governor Hochul's historic FY 2023 budget pairs bold vision with fiscal responsibility, investing in the long-term future of New York. Rebuilding the healthcare economy, building the education system of the future, reducing the tax burden for those who need it most, improving the state's transportation and housing infrastructure, combating climate change, creating jobs, and improving public safety and ethics in government are front and center in this blueprint to meet the opportunity to invest in New Yorkers.
VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of the event is available here.
PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
Thank you everyone. We had a little schedule change when I flew down from Albany, and because of the wind, we were like, “Whoa. And we had to go way out here and not there.” So we're a little behind schedule. So we're going to do the potholes afterwards. Cause I said, I did not want to leave all these wonderful people waiting a second longer.
So we're going to get out there as soon as we're done. So thank you, Pothole Queen, Princess, whatever you want and press you be, Empress. You can be the Empress. Whatever you like. So thank you.
I do want to acknowledge some people here today. Taylor Darling, for her extraordinary leadership, as well as this incredible delegation. I got to know the members of the Long Island Delegation, probably more than anywhere else, because they are nonstop relentless in their pursuit of doing good for the people they represent. I saw them nonstop. I invited them for a nice meal at the Governor's Mansion. You think that's nice? No? The next day they're at me again. “We want this, we want this, we want this,” okay, so you got my attention. But I also want to tell you that I also knew Long Island, so well from all those years as Lieutenant. And I had a chance to see each of you in action in your districts, and how hard you fight for them.
And so, it was easy for me to say, how can we work together to help the people of Long Island? And I believe that this budget, this transformative budget, accomplishes just that. So, I do want to give a shout-out, I know a lot of people are recognized, I do want to recognize the members of your delegation who fought so hard and continue to fight so hard for you. Again, Kevin Thomas, so proud to be in your district. Kevin Thomas. Let's give him a round of applause. Senator Anna Kaplan let's give Anna Kaplan a round of applause. John Brooks, Senator John Brooks has joined us. Thank you. Senator Jim Gaughran is here as well. Senator Gaughran, Assemblymember Chuck Lavine is here. I see Chuck over there. Assemblymember Phil Ramos. Thank you. Assemblymember Gina Sillitti. And also many, many other individuals.
And I do want to thank our Mayor. One year on the job, what a year, what a year this has been for you. Great to see you. Mayor. Mayor Hobbs. We’re joined by someone I've nominated to be the Chairperson of Empire State Development. So senators, let's move along a little faster, now. Let's get the approval done. And that would be Kevin Law, the former Head of the Long Island Association. You're also going to hear, and also from our Town of Hempstead Senior Councilmember Dorsey Goosby, I've seen at many events. Great to see you here as well. We will be also hearing from some members of the labor community. I hope they're rested up. They've had so much work to do under this budget. So we're going to be hearing from Matthew Aracich, the Nassau Suffolk Building Trades Council President, as well as Ryan Stanton, Long Island Federation, Labor Executive Director, who is filling in for John Durso.
So let's go through this presentation. I think you're gonna like what you see and, let's get started. I'm haven’t mentioned, the new woman president of Hofstra University. Susan Poser, I want to thank her, Susan. I informed her that I'm one of the alum in a sense that, I was able to give a commencement address, and in return they gave me an honorary student award. I'm now a member of the family. So I'm really proud of that. And also, I wanted to ask is, is Linda Schulman here? Linda, I just want to tell you, that when we worked on our public safety initiatives, I had you and your family in my mind and in my heart. So I want to thank you for your tireless leadership, championing smart gun safety initiatives, not just here in the State of New York, but throughout our country, let's give it to Linda Schulman.
So now we'll get started. We are about to be at Kennedy Memorial Park. We'll be out there, but, I think about, I know Long Island, I know what you talk about, I've been to your barbecues. You talk about the potholes all the time. Everybody's complaining about potholes. No one has hit more potholes in the State of New York than I have, because I've traveled 372,000 miles, not by plane, all on the road. And so, I've had a personal encounter and I said, “They're the most welcoming, they give me this big welcome when I'm on Long Island, because they're enormous.” So we're coming at them. So we talked about potholes all the time. Also, you can't go to a single event on Long Island and not talk about the Islanders. So that is something I've come to know, the great affection that people have, and finally we brought them home. But also you talk about property taxes, right? Yeah. Yeah. You talked about them a lot. Let's talk about them here today, because these are the issues that we're going to be focusing on and making sure that people know what our focus is, and that is on these very initiatives.
So we have a $221 billion budget. I will tell you that there are a number of initiatives in here that are funded by one-time-only investments that came from Washington to help us deal with the pandemic. So they're here this year. They're not gonna be here next year. So that is why our budget has a number like this, because we are so fortunate with president Joe Biden, and majority leader Senator Schumer, and our leadership who supported it, and not everybody in our delegation supported it, but those who supported our infrastructure investments, et cetera, and our support for COVID recovery. They helped us get on our feet, that helps people who could’t make their rent payments, and how people can pay their utility payments. And so, that's why our budget has higher numbers than expected, because we actually had this one-time amount of money, and we were able to put aside a tremendous amount of money for future rainy days as well. So we're going to continue making investments today that are going to be historically talked a lot about.
Potholes. I said, “How much money should be put toward potholes?” I said, “How's a billion dollar sound?” A billion dollars for Operation Pave Our Potholes. We knew that we needed to do something. I mentioned the Islanders. I was there at the opening of UBS. I think there's some special going on tonight, isn't there not? Tonight, a big tribute to Mike Bossy, right? The Boss. And how sad to lose him just a couple of days ago and, you know, Hall of Famer, four times Stanley Cup Champion, and what an inspiration, what a great guy, and he was underappreciated in his time, but not by his fans. And so, finally, the recognition is due. He'll be missed by many people here tonight. So let's honor him this evening. And I mentioned, we're going to talk about, not just potholes, not just beyond, we're going to talk about your taxes, your property taxes. And so we know they're too. And at a time when inflation just seems to be unrelenting, the cost of everything is going up, you know, just to have a little more money back in your pocket, we are going to ensure that nearly half a million Long Islanders have upwards of $1,300 on average back in their pockets, because they are paying too much. That's $2.2 billion that we work with your delegation and make sure that we had this relief this year. So we're going to work on that.
So let's talk about other ways we can help new Yorkers. I have been to so many of your small towns and your communities. We had the Downtown Revitalization Initiative. I had a chance to go there and talk about how so many areas of our state and Long Island, the small businesses were hit so hard during the pandemic. My gosh, the restaurants and the bars, and the attractions, and the culturals. The mom-and-pop shops that were just knocked down so hard. So we want to make sure that we continue to have relief for taxpayers, small businesses, as well as the individuals. So we are going to expedite, accelerate our middle-class tax cuts. So, that was supposed to happen in the future. I said, “The future is now they need it in their pockets now.” So let's do that. That's going to benefit over 900,000 Long Islanders, as well as support for small businesses. And then what about those gas prices? My God, we couldn't have foreseen this, but the invasion by Putin into Ukraine, I mean, it had a ripple effect around the global economy and we're paying the price now. And that's hard for small businesses and families trying to get your kids to the soccer game, or trying to take a family vacation that you had put off during the pandemic, or small businesses in particular.
So we decided. We could do a short-term fix.In fact, some states, only four states dealt with this, and I'll just give you a quick history. The state of Florida is going to suspend their sales tax on gas in October. Don't ask me, you got to ask that Governor. I mean, I don't know what they're thinking, but that doesn't really help anybody right here now. So we said just at a time when the price of gas historically gets higher, let's not do it for a couple months, like our neighboring state, let's have it start when the price does go up, June 1st, all the way to the end of the year. So we're going to suspend the sales tax on gasoline through that time. And I understand. And we pushed, we pushed our partners in county government to do the same. And so I want to thank the county officials here that did this in Nassau and Suffolk counties as well. And that's great news for Long Islander, because other parts of the state, we still need the counties to do their share as well. And that's great news for Long Islanders because other parts of the state, we still need the counties to do their share as well. I mentioned small businesses. We have over $250 million to help offset their COVID related expense. If you think about the businesses that had a really, you know, they had to put up all sorts of different structures, some had to have outdoor dining and, you know, different spacing.
So we made sure that they now have reimbursement for that. So, that's not a cost they have to bear themselves. But also how else can we help our small businesses? What worked during the pandemic that people appreciated? Well, top of that list if you ask new Yorkers was to go drink, I mean, that's apparently the most exciting thing we did in our entire budget.
And guess what? It went into effect immediately. So the night the budget finishes, okay, let's order up some drinks for my team here because they sure deserve it. So, we did that and we're already getting feedback. I'm already getting calls from restaurants or just saying, you know what?
That extra infusion of money helps us so much because we're still not fully recovered from the pandemic. So let's continue to focus on that. The small businesses, that's the identity that downtown, that's the personality, that's the charm. You know, one of the reasons I got involved in politics was I helped my mother start a small business in a small, you think about a village mayor?
My village was a whopping 10,000 people. So it doesn’t compare close to your 65, but my whole town where I was elected was about 60,000 and businesses were taken on the chin. This was at a time of recession, a lot of industry left. And so we banded together all the small businesses that are downtown. We led this effort to try and just fight back.
And so, this is personal to me because I know the struggles of small business owners and they had to put their dreams on hold during the pandemic. So, let's continue to help them any way we can. But so now, you know, the potholes and the Islanders and taxes. I think there's some other things we've done for New York as well.
So my question always is, you know, it's real simple. There's a lot of noise out there. Kay, lot of noise. I am so laser focused on answering one question and that is what is best for New Yorkers? You focus on that, you'll get the right answer every single time. And so, that's what we're focusing on. At this moment, we're talking about how people had to come to this pandemic, the stress on parents, on families, on our teachers, my God, the teachers, what they had to go through during this time, our healthcare workers, our frontline workers, and you know what our students. A lot of students aren't the same.
They had to go through so much that isolation, you know. I have nieces that are younger and, you know, just they're not the same as they were beforehand. You know, they're not as outgoing and there's a lot of stress when you're not around other people, you spend too much time on the social media and it is tough find young people, you know, all the messaging that goes out there.
So, we have a lot of young people that need our help and we need mental health services in our schools. Well, we never thought we would, you know, there was certain kids who had needs and challenges, but now we're seeing it's much more widespread and we need to help them recover and recover now.
So we are going to continue focusing on education and that is why we have a whopping $31.5 billion for our schools. That is the highest ever. That is a $357 million increase in aid just for Long Island alone. And also the foundation aid, which I had to settle a long standing lawsuit to get money, to hide need areas, and then continue that commitment because it owed and due to the people, the state, they did not have it until we settled this.
So we're going to continue making historic investments. And I'm really proud of that. I really believe that this is where we need to spend a substantial amount of money to help our schools give back, help our teachers, and most of all help our students. So I want to give a special shout out to Regina Armstrong, the Superintendent of Hampstead Schools.
Regina, in 2021 you had the most improved graduation rate in the state. How do you do it? We need to know how you've done that. And I think it was 81%... Stand up and take a round of applause because this is a very big deal. This is a big deal.
At one time, it was 37%, and got up to 81%. That's extraordinary. That's extraordinary. I want that story told all over the state. I want to know how you did it. Okay. Okay. Write the book. Tell us how you did it. Give us the secret sauce here. So we're really proud of that, but every child deserves to live in a district with that kind of outcome.
That's who we are as a people. Those are our New York values and I'm putting the money right there to make sure that happens. So let's help the kids. We need to have full day pre-K for kids. Their parents need it, they need it. They need to get that support. So we're going to have over 4,300 new slots right here on Long Island alone, another $125 million.
We're just getting started with that. Also, all the way from preschool to higher education, and we have outstanding educational institutes. Private sites, as you mentioned, Hofstra University, also investing in SUNY and CUNY operations, another $500 million for them. We need to unleash the power of higher education.
This is what transforms families’ lives. I know this because my parents at one time lived in a trailer park and my dad worked at a steel plant. And what got them out of those circumstances that changed my whole family's trajectory, my dad getting a college degree while he was working at the steel plant.
And that lifted him up. My little brother, when he graduated, I was very much in my mother's stomach. She was expecting me upon graduation. We have great pictures, but he got through it. And when he had that degree, he could do something different with his life than just use his hands and make steel. Like his grandfather, his father, and everyone in our family had done.
That's the power of education I want unleashed all over this state, because no child should be held back because they did not have access to education. Also, right here on Long Island, we have an opportunity to continue investing in world-class research, and this is what the companies of the future are looking for. They want to go to a place where they know that the students will be educated in state-of-the-art technologies and engineering and research, especially as we're making this a global hub for green jobs right here. So let's lean into that. So we’re making Stony Brook a world-class institution, $100 million for an engineering building. Now in the old days engineering side and kind of like, “What is an engineer?” Now we know that those are the innovators. There's so many variations of engineering and we're going to make it a multidisciplinary program. As well as $50 million to support an artificial intelligence partnership between Cold Spring Harbor and Stony Brook as well. So again, leveraging the brilliant minds that are already here. Let's pull them together, let's give them the resources and then put ourselves back on the map. And so, I mentioned Hofstra University, we work closely with the REDC, with Stuart as the chair with, along with Kevin Law. I do want to say, I'm really proud. I mean, Long Island is just, you really punch above your weight. There's a lot of people here, but when you think about, you know, population-wise and the caliber of the educational institutions you have, they're extraordinary. And I do believe that that is being discovered as we know.
So how do we make higher education more accessible? Well, tuition assistance wasn't available for part-time students. You know how many students had to go to community college one semester, and then the next semester take off so they can work at a fast food joint like I did for a long time? Or some place just to bring in and they can make the next payment. You wonder why they don't graduate on time? They couldn't afford it. So now it's one of those things we did in the budget, change that whole outcome for people by making tuition assistance available for part-time students, expanding the benefits to over 75,000. Also, another barrier to education, especially for women, we're now going to make sure that there's childcare available on all the SUNY and CUNY campuses. So that's another change.
And overall childcare, we're making an historic investment and use that word historical a lot, because it’s true. $7 billion, $7 billion over the next four years for childcare. So we're going to be adding over 430,000 new slots for kids, more than double the current amount of support they have now. So we're going to open the doors to childcare for over half the children in New York State. That is transformative that gives the parents the opportunity to have flexibility, the moms who want to get back to work, the kids who need to have that opportunity to integrate with other kids as well. So this is going to be another part of how we're leaning into the future. Another part of our, we're leaning into the future. We're investing in families, we're investing in opportunities for them and helping with that childcare burden is such an important part of that. I know that, I had to leave a job I loved in Washington because I didn't have anybody to watch the kids so many years later, that's still a problem and it should not be a problem.
But also we talked about building and I must have spent a lot of time playing with Legos when I was a kid, because I love to build. And $32.8 billion, a 40% increase over the last five year Capital Plan. This is going to change the whole landscape of our state, starting with infrastructure underground, on the roads and as we rise up to the heavens, so we're going to continue this.
I'm real excited about this. And now Commissioner Dominguez, don't spend it all in one place. Now this is a lot of money for you to be able to manage, but I know you're up to the task. You're an incredible leader, but this is the largest investment in infrastructure ever made in the history of New York State.
Let's talk about $157 million to start right now. I’m impatient, I'm very impatient, starting this spring, we're going to restore 480, look at this 480, it’s not a typo. 480 lane miles right here in Nassau and Suffolk County starting this summer, this spring. That's incredible. And we mentioned the potholes, also the LIE. 287 lane miles between Nassau and the Suffolk border, State Route 112, $80 million for that project, an average of 152,000 vehicles travel this every day. I have a lot of potholes there too. So let's go after those.
The Meadowbrook State Parkway, let's resurface 23 lane miles between Merrick Road toward the Ocean Parkway in Hempstead, $5.6 million and that's expected to be completed, completed by Memorial Day this year.
So a lot of good things happening soon, the Southern State Parkway, 63 miles, $23 million there. That's going to be completed between now and the end of 2022.
Restoration of 11 lane miles between route 231 and the State Parkway in Babylon and Islip that has over a hundred, 200,000 vehicles a day.
There's so much here. All I want to say is, when you see construction vehicles and you have to slow down a little bit, please don't complain. Don't complain, this is a good thing. Okay. This is a very good thing.
Another 30 lane miles on roads, including State Route 114, 109, 25A, 111, Sunrise Highway, North Service Road and South Service Road.
Finally, this is a mess too. I've been there many times. We're going to reconfigure the Oakdale merge because congestion is out of control. And we're going to do $30 million to begin the environmental review process because that'll reduce delays for over 126,000 commuters and cut down on all the emissions for Long Islanders in that area.
So that is going to be incredible right there as well. So also if you don't want to drive because you don't like the potholes and you're taking the train, let's complete the Third Track by the end of this year, let's get that done. Let's finish the East Side Access for faster commute to the, I went on one of my first jobs as Governor, I think it was. I was asked to go on a trial ride. Nobody else had tested this before, I started thinking, “Okay, is this a setup? You're not sure this is going to work, okay? But they put me on the train to go through the East Side access. It's going to be spectacular when you come out of there. Just the whole environment is so uplifting and that's what we're doing. We're changing infrastructure to not just be a mode of transportation to get from here to there, it's about an opportunity to lift people's spirits. And that's what I want to do with places like Penn station as well. When you start your day early in the morning on Long Island, after you've got the kids off to school and you're taking that train ride in, I want you to come out and look up to the heavens through beautiful glass ceilings and see art and just a whole different sense that people matter, our commuters matter, their experiences matter. And that's something we have control over in government. We can give you just ordinary dull as dishwater infrastructure and it's boring and it doesn't matter. Or we can do something that matters, and make a statement, and this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to make a statement that we value the people of this state and they deserve the very best. And that's what we're going to accomplish.
Also, I was there for a many phases of this, but how about launching phase two of the $700 million state of the art Ronkonkoma hub? And that is a model for the rest of the nation. I love what we're doing there. I think I saw Kevin Law out there, just not that long ago. So we're going to continue focusing on this as well. So let's get those done. Also, MacArthur airport, we got a little work to do there. Let's have a new terminal there to connect the LIRR to Ronkonkoma Station as well as Penn Station.
So I also said there's a lot of projects that have not been fully fleshed out yet. But I know Kevin Law has them in his head because he's got these ideas and our labor community and our partners in government. So we are going to have a fund for $350 million. And this was the result of your legislators, your senators, fighting through the night to make sure that they had the ability to deliver for their residents. And we have a fund for Long Island investment, and that's going to focus on our industry like manufacturing, biotech, downtown revitalization, and educating the next generation of workers to take those good paying jobs. So let's work on that everybody, I'm really excited about that funding as well.
And I have been here for so many offshore wind announcements as Lieutenant Governor and now as Governor. And so we're not going to be nation leading. We are nation leading. In terms of our bold vision for the future, it’s not just the tens of thousands of jobs that are going to be created. It’s also the whole supply system. When you know that when you look off the shores of Long Island, when the wind turbines are up, parts of that will have been manufactured up next to the port of Albany. It's going to come down the Hudson river. Those are New York jobs all the way here to transport it. And so we can build, we don't have to rely on Germany and other places.
We're going to do it right here, because I want to be self-sufficient. I don't want to rely on other parts of the globe, whether it's for semiconductor chips or anything else. We have to be independent, and this is the start of it with our own investments in every element of the supply chain for our offshore wind. So we are the offshore wind capital of the world in New York, and it's right here on Long Island. So I'm real excited about that.
We have five projects on the books right now, over $2.4 million homes that it will power. And that's going be extraordinary. How about training people to do those jobs? Okay, that's important. We can't just say go do those jobs. There's training, there's skill involved. So we're advancing the offshore wind training Institute and that's going to be part of Stony Brook and Farmingdale as well. So then I need your help in November, everyone. You like the idea of clean air, clean water, green jobs, investing in the future - here's the opportunity. We came forward with a $4.2 billion bond deck. Bond deck meeting it's going to the voters, it's going to be on the ballot this year.
I need your help. And through that, we'll electrify our bus feet. We have so many other things we're going to be able to work on but start the initiative now. Start working right now to build up the support so this gets passed by the voters. And this will be something that your grandkids will talk about some day, when we turn the corner on mankind's assault on mother nature. And I'm not going to talk about mankind’s assault on mother nature. I'm not going to point out anything in there at all. I'm just going to say – you make the connection. It has to end. It has to end, right? It's going to end on our watch.
This is going to be part of our legacy and our post pandemic world. What we did, that'll be not just building back our state, but building a better future for our kids. It starts with the bond act and the investments that you see here in this budget. Also, this is an important issue that I heard a lot about from your members. We need to make our state safer and make our criminal justice system fairer. And we can accomplish both.
This is one of the most complex issues in the budget. We were a little late toward the end there, but you know what, it was worthwhile. And I just want to put out here, when people talk about a late budget -when I was an assembly intern, do you know when the budget used to show up? July, August, it was still due March 31st. So, you go a couple of extra days in overtime and you get the result we got, I think everyone agreed that it was worth it. Those were important conversations to have to get the job done.
We know there's been an increase in crime. People are anxious about this. It's all over the country. And I've never said bail reform was the cause of crime going up in Chicago or Washington, it does not, but we have to deal with the fact that there are elements that need to be put back into bail eligibility. Starting with violence offenses involving guns. Some of these were just common sense. They need to be put back in. And so we heard from a lot of very passionate voices on both sides of the debate. I respect them very much.
And I believe that we've accomplished everything from closing loopholes around Discovery, because a lot of cases are being thrown out for really minor reasons and we changed that. I know the district attorney's statewide appreciate that. We also looked at what a judge considers when setting bail, you know, the history of gun use, you should be at least considering that, that's important. The cycle of repeat offenders. I mean, a lot of our small businesses are like, come on, every day someone walks in and they'd go back, and they just get an appearance ticket, which is like a parking ticket. They're back out. We had a focus on that.
As well as crack down on gun trafficking. The definition of what a gun trafficker is. Protect victims of domestic violence, victims of hate crimes, more resources for our district attorneys as well as our public defenders, investing in mental health as well. We have a crisis. Again, the crisis has always been there, but when you combine the effects of people being isolated from their treatment and their support system and everything they had to keep them going, all that collapsed during the pandemic.
And now this is part of the cleanup, we have to help people. And so we're going to continue focusing on giving people, especially those who are homeless, but everyone who has mental health challenges, let them just have the dignity of a good healthy life. And that's what I'm focused on as well. As well as making sure we don't go back to an era of mass incarceration of individuals. We have to have fairness in our system.
So we know how to do this. We accomplished it in this budget, and that is something that I believe is going to change people's perceptions and as well as the reality. So we put $227 million in gun violence prevention and violence disruptive programs. I convened a gathering of former members who had been incarcerated. Many of them were gang members and talked to them about programs that actually work, how you intercede, how you talk to these young people before they go too far in the wrong direction or if they start on to start bringing them back - let them feel that there's a better future waiting for them.
So we're investing in those kinds of programs. I want to invest in the ones that work. I don't want to just spread it all around. I want to say let's identify what really works and put the real money behind those as well. So, we’ve invested in gun violence intelligence as well, tripling our amount of money. That's intelligence sharing among police departments. In fact, in January, I put forth, for the first time ever, I brought together nine states to talk about gun interdiction because we're not making those guns here. They're coming in from other states. Although the specter of ghost guns, which we banned in New York, legislature passed a law to ban it, I signed it back in November, so they're not legal in our state, but they're showing up in our communities.
So, we had to bring together a consortium of people from other states, other cities, NYPD, Boston PD, as well. So we're continuing to focus on identifying what people are doing and tracking them out of state before they even get here, as well as community stabilization units and also money for communities that have been hit hard by crime, because it has a ripple effect. It's not just the person, who's the victim or the person who may be incarcerated, the whole community is paralyzed. And the children who grew up in that environment are affected. You have to deal with a holistic approach to dealing with gun violence. We're going to be focusing on those sources of funding as well.
We're investing in our healthcare system and teacher workforces. $20 billion in our healthcare system. Why do we need to do that? This pandemic brought our healthcare system to its knees and very different hospitals, depending on how stable they were before the pandemic, a lot of them were really crushed. They lost revenues from elective surgeries for a long time, particularly in other parts of the state. And we lost so many healthcare workers. They're exhausted. You could see it in their eyes. They went through so much, they just didn't understand why people just didn't do what was smart and do the right thing and they just said, why are we going through this again? It wasn't just the first wave, it was Delta, it was Omicron. It's what we're dealing with now, these other variants.
So, we lost people. We lost people. I understand it, they went through so much, but we have to rebuild. We have to invest in them. We have to give the ones who stayed a bonus so they don't go somewhere else. So that's what we're doing with our investments here as well.
Also investing in our affordable housing. I mean, it's Long Island. You think Long island? My gosh, I've heard so many stories from parents who say my kids won't be able to afford to grow up in the community they were born in. I want to be around my grandkids someday, but the kids are leaving. They can't afford to live here any longer. And that to me is a tragedy. So, we're investing in affordable housing. We're investing $25 billion. They have 100,000 affordable housing unit. Also investing in workforce development, $350 million and $450 million for investing in our downtowns as well.
And we're confronting - there's so much to talk about - we're confronting our opioid crisis as well. And that is another one of those collateral effects. It was bad. It started trending downward because I was chair of the heroin opioid task force. I did forums right here on Long Island with elected leaders many times. And then the numbers started going back up after the pandemic. Again, people disconnected from their support systems, their treatment, and we are going to keep reimbursements for telehealth services because people can at least connect with a therapist or a social worker or someone to help them. But we have to continue. This is something that touched my family, personally, we lost a nephew just a few years ago and you know, the pain is still there for families who see someone spiral out of control and they can't get help. And so I want to help those families as well. I want to help those families as well.
So, we are going to continue making investments in people and in places as well as the future we're going to be protecting. I want to let people know when they see the size of our budget, a lot of that was one time only because we had the money from the federal government, but going forward, I also know we needed a very healthy, rainy day fund. When I became governor at the end of August, I said, how much do we have in reserves? If things get bad, what happens? We had four percent. I said, I did 14 municipal budgets. We are told that we need to have at least 15 percent in reserve because you can't always count on the federal government. The leadership changes in Washington. You think we're going to keep getting that kind of money coming? No. I served in Congress with different leadership. They were not real excited about sending money to New York. So, that's the world we face if things change in Washington.
As well as we had historic tax receipts, we had money from Wall Street, very healthier time. With our geopolitical conflict, how do I know that Wall Street isn’t going to take a nose dive?
So. I have all these variables out there. I have to plan for the worst case scenario to make sure that after this year’s budget, we can continue to balance our budgets and we have balanced budgets through 2027 and I'm putting aside a record 15 percent into reserves for that rainy day fund, because I want to be self-sufficient. So, that's going to prepare for rainy days or as I come from Buffalo, the blizzard days, because it seems to have as many blizzards as we do rain up there.
You have to be ready, you have to be ready for anything else that could happen. Another hurricane and the cleanup associated with it. Another pandemic that's resistant to all of our vaccines that we started over from square one. I have to be ready. I have to be able to take care of the test kits and stand up the vaccination sites and help pay for nurses and doctors again. I need New Yorkers to know we are ready. We are ready because we took money aside, put into the budget, going forward and make sure that those operating funds are going to be there for the long-term.
We'll not only recover from this pandemic, we’ll emerge stronger than before, because I have a dream. I have a dream I spoke about my first day. I said, it's not just about people coming here for the American dream, like so many did like my grandparents fleeing poverty. There's also the New York dream that once you're here, we've got to protect your rights. We honor you as individuals, and we're going to make sure that you have the best life, not just for yourselves, but for your children and grandchildren. And I believe that this budget, this particular budget, is a blueprint for that path forward. And yes, indeed, my friends, it is a new era for New York and I thank you. Thank you.