Governor Hochul: “And what we do here on Long Island, with business leaders like all of you, we’ll send a message. That yes, not just Long Island is back, but show the nation that New York State is back. You may have taken us down hard during this pandemic, but we are coming back stronger than ever before. And I believe that to my core.”
Earlier today, after Governor Kathy Hochul delivers remarks at the Long Island Association State of The Region Breakfast.
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 are available here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
Thank you. Thank you and good morning, Long Island! It is so great to be back here, just one year ago, I spoke about the State of the State at this incredible association, talking about how we are finding our way through this pandemic. And we didn't know at the time that we'd be struck with not just the Delta Variant, but Omicron, but I want to say I see the beginning of the end and I am so excited to be able to soon be announcing the lifting of restrictions, but until then, my friends let's remember that here on Long Island, the [7-day average] infection rate is still 14%. Higher than the State average. So continue doing what we've asked you to do all along, to keep our kids safe, our businesses, our workers, safe and follow, but just a little bit longer.
And I want to thank everyone and the great partners we've had in government as well as at this Long Island association. Matt, you've just hit the ground running. We had a great relationship even before you ascended to this position, but we have sat down, we've talked, I've heard your concerns, and I want to thank you for your leadership.
And my relationship with this organization goes back a long way, with Kevin Law, who actually made me an honorary Long Islander, without the taxes I hope. So I've worked closely with Kevin and now I'm making sure that the voice of Long Island is heard by having him ascend to the position as the chairperson of Empire State Development, as soon as he gets through his confirmation proceeding. So Long Island has a strong voice and Kevin Law and myself representing it as we go forward.
And I want to thank Larry Waldman. I think he's on remotely by our chair of LIA, and also the incredible partners and friends that I've met and worked with here on Long Island. And I want to start with some individuals who represent you in our state capital. You have an extraordinary delegation of assemblymembers and senators who, believe me, I can't walk past them without them saying things like Third Track and, and water quality and potholes and all these issues. And I want to thank in particular, some of the members who are here today. Senator John Brooks, and Senator Anna Kaplan and a Senator Jim Gaughran, and Senator Kevin Thomas. These are the ones who are representing you so powerfully in our State Capital. Let's give them a round of applause as well as our assemblymembers who are joining us here today.
But I spent a little time in local government. I have 14 years under my belt of doing 14 municipal budgets. So I have strong regard for the challenges that our supervisors, our mayors, our council members, and those who are on the front lines. And I want to thank all of them for their leadership and also at the county level, spent time as a county official. And I just, I have a great relationship with Steve Bellone. Steve, great to see you here. We are on speed-dial during this pandemic. What do you need? How many tests kits, how many more vaccination sites and how's the weather going? Lot of time we talked and said, “Steve what's it look like out the window and do you need any more help?” And I look forward to developing a relationship with our new Nassau County Executive, Bruce Blakeman, who I knew when he was a council member. So it's all about relationship.
And I also want to thank some people who came before. Senator Al D'Amato, I believe is in the house. Senator D'Amato. I had had a steal it, my friend, but I am now Governor Pothole! I took that from Senator Pothole, okay? So let's, let's talk about that. So I'm excited to be here and I've spent so much time. I actually know what people talk about in their backyards and their kitchens, when they're watching their games, and it's three things and I call it PIP. Long Islanders can reduce the conversation to PIP. It is potholes number one, P for potholes. And we're going to talk about that. It is also the Islanders. Let's talk about the Islanders, we got them a brand new home, and also Property Taxes.
So I'm going to address all of those here today, as well as a lot of other issues that are going to support Long Island's recovery, and support the business community in particular, as we emerge from this pandemic. And I need Long Island to be leaders because Long Island is really a microcosm of the entire state. So you have the incredible diversity in people, the diversity of businesses in various industries, to small businesses, the wineries, the mom, and pop shops, the little places like Theodore's Bookstore in Oyster Bay, where I stopped and got a book on Teddy Roosevelt, just a couple of weeks ago, you have that whole ecosystem that needs to be starting to not just survive, but it has to thrive.
And what we do here on Long Island, with business leaders like all of you, we’ll send a message. That yes, not just Long Island is back, but show the nation that New York State is back. You may have taken us down hard during this pandemic, but we are coming back stronger than ever before. And I believe that to my core. So I'm going to go through some highlights. I know, no one's real excited about watching PowerPoints. Neither am I, but I'm going to flip through this because you need to see some of these numbers, because they're quite astounding. So, looking forward to continue our conversations.
I'm going to start with potholes because no one has traveled the state more than I have. I have a personal experience with every single pothole, especially on the LIE. And I was happy to be on a phone call with Assemblymember Taylor Darling. Taylor, where are you? Sitting in a tire repair shop because it just blew out my tire here. And its about $500 for a repair, okay we’re coming after the potholes, and enough is enough, seriously, New Yorkers spend about $632 a year because of road damage done to their vehicles. And let's just come at this with a vengeance. So we are going to go from Potholes to Not-Holes and I'm putting a billion dollars behind that. And we're coming after them right here on Long Island. So, looking forward to making sure we do that. And I did mention the Islanders. It’s exciting, I love sports. I love sports, and I was happy to be there. And we opened this incredibly beautiful, majestic arena that is so appropriate for a team we all love so greatly, and bring them back, making sure they stayed here at the UBS arena in November was incredible. So let's continue to support our teams.
But also, yes, we talk about taxes all the time. I, again was a local official. It's all we talk about, how to keep our taxes down and we know that property taxes are still too high and that's why. As part of our recovery, I've dedicated $2 billion toward reducing the property tax burden, because I know it's hitting people hard here on Long Island. Let's get that money out. An average of $1,300 per household this year, benefited nearly 500,000, you can clap for that, if you don't clap, you're not getting the money. Okay. There you go. But also, middle-class taxpayers. Let's give them a break. $1.2 billion tax cut for them as well. This was a tax cut that was supposed to roll out over the next few years. I said, “No, we've got a pandemic. We have people that are dealing with inflation right now. They didn't foresee this. Let's front-load it. And get that money in their pockets starting this year.” And that means over 6 million more taxpayers will see benefits when it's hitting us so hard, inflation so hard.
So our small businesses, first thing I did out of law school has help my mother start a small business. Now, she knew nothing about business. But she didn't like the flowers that were done at my brother's wedding by the local florists, so she now is going to start a flower shop, and her daughter, the lawyer, who knows so much, one week after graduation, was going to get it going for. So I know the struggles, I know what it's like to start an MWBE. I know how hard it is, and we need to help our small businesses, who, many of them are just knocked to their knees during this pandemic. So $250 million to help our small businesses come back as well, and also pay for the extra COVID related expenses, the businesses that want to have outdoor dining, which I think is incredible. Many great dinners sitting there under a wonderful heater. And I think it's just way that we should be doing things.
We can expand the season. It doesn't have to be all indoors. So let's help those businesses. I have been to so many of the farms here, people, other parts of the state out there, they don't think of farms and wineries and the beautiful areas, the rural areas we have here on Long Island. This is a treasure. And I've been to more wineries, that I'm going to talk about here today, but I've sampled them. The wines are outstanding. We have to help them come back and get back on their feet. And that's what I'm going to continue doing as well. So more than just the potholes, and the Islanders, and the property taxes, I want to give you this an overview of our larger budget priorities and share my overall vision for Long Island, because this is an historic opportunity for all of us. This money that we have now, will not be there in a couple of years.
So how we spend it now is going to help, help us recover, help us build back, help people who in businesses have been hit so hard. But also, I do not want to have any situation where we have recurring expenses that we can't afford in the future. Because the last thing I want to do from countless years in government is to create expectations and then say, oh, everything was great, and now it all has to be cut because we ran out of money. So what you'll see is a balanced budget, a well thought out budget that deals with immediate concerns with the one-time revenues that we got from number one, the Federal Government, thank God for Joe Biden and the people in Washington who sent that money to us during the pandemic, as well as the new infrastructure dollars.
Also the stock market is doing great, fabulous, great revenues for the State of New York. I'm not counting on that being long-term either. I mean, after the last pandemic, what happened? 1918? 1919, the roaring twenties? Weren't they great? Yeah. Its awesome, and all of a sudden, 1929 came around. Okay, we're going to be ready for anything that happens. So we're going to have reserves set aside so we can handle any rainy day, or as I come from Buffalo, a snowy days, what we're more likely to have. So, we're going to be smart about this, but this is an extraordinary time and we have an extraordinary opportunity. So it's all about investments now.
Infrastructure, we talk about this nonstop. A lot of people don't get real excited about infrastructure, unless you're an engineer or an architect. I get excited about infrastructure because again, as a local government official, it's all I heard about. And we always used to complain, why won't Albany give us more money for our storm sewers and our water treatment facilities and our roads and our bridges? We were always complaining about Albany.
That's why I'm so sensitive when I'm in Albany and when I meet with County Executives who two days ago said, we never had a relationship like this. I said, because I was one of you. I know how frustrating it is. So we're turning the dynamic around and I'm making sure that we have, here on Long Island, $50 million more dollars in chips, 14 million dollars in local highway. Almost $10 billion dollars for weather recovery and $6.5 million on the bridge that carries Westford, route 27 or Barnes road. I've been on that one as well. That needs help. Pavement from route 112, additional funding and support for all these roads as we hit the Nassau Suffolk border. It needs to happen.
I mean, I'll get you all these numbers. There's a lot of money on here, almost 15 million for pavement along the Northern Boulevard. As well as $40 million dollars in transit operating assistance to Suffolk county. You're welcome Steve Bellone, and $103 million to Nassau County. Mr. County Exec, is that you saying yes to that?
Alright. You put on your mask and can have all the money you want okay?
Also, that Oakdale merge in Suffolk County, that's a mess. So, let's get that taken care of it as well. You got to get used to my sense of humor. I'm going to be around a long time, so he's got to deal with it.
Also, we're trying to connect - and there's a lot of places people live, they work right here in Long Island, but we have plenty of people who want to go into the city, right? We have to make those connections. And that's what I call infrastructure, its all about connections. Let's make it better. And that's why when I used to come out seven years ago and sit down with Kevin Law and people in the executive committee here, all they talked about was third track, get it done. Yes, it's getting done. We're almost finished. We're going to complete it by the end of this year. And that is going to be transformative for people.
The east side access, that's going to be a faster, easier way into the east side of Manhattan. I took one of the inaugural rides, I said, so they kind of want me to test drive it. It's like really? That's how much you care about me? You're going to have me test this out in a tunnel and see if it works? Okay. I know where I stand. But it worked out great and she’ll be open by the end of the year.
Ronkonkoma hub, I was just here a couple months ago. That is incredible. Yes, Steve, that was amazing to see what we've done here. And I'm so focused on phase two, $700 million dollars for the art hub. Penn station, where a lot of our communities are going to end up. And I gave the example of a mother having to start the day in darkness on Long Island and pack up the lunches and head off to her job. And she ends up in a place that is full of darkness and depression and how is she supposed to start her day when she emerges from Penn Station just saying, my God, this is awful? We need to do better.
And yes, we have a beautiful Moynihan station, but I said, that's not serving people from Long Island and the rest of the state, the way Penn station does. Penn station should not have to wait until we finished the gateway tunnel, hopefully in my lifetime. But I have no idea, I'm going to work on that. But in tandem, let's focus on making Penn station spectacular for primarily our Long Island residents who deserve to have a world-class experience. So that's what I'm excited about. So those of you who take the LIRR. I know you complained a long time about, the lines are too long, the waits are too long, are you going to be late? Guess what? I'm going to announce some news here. Newsflash, headline.
Long island was the best - 2021 was the best on time percentage since we started keeping track for 50 years. 96.3%, we're on time. How about that? That's what infrastructure can do. That's what infrastructure does for our commuters. And that is a quality of life issue, a quality of life issue because the less time you're spending commuting, more time you are at home. And let's focus on some other great projects. MacArthur airport. How about $40 million dollars?
Angie Carpenter's going to like this one. Spent a lot of time with her. She's the kind of person - I was just like Angie in local government. We're at the wonderful – we’re breaking ground on the transportation hub, in 2020 I think it was. Isn't this great? A lot of money coming your way. She's like, that's not good enough, because Angie says, we now need another 40 million to do the north terminal, the new - on the north side. So Angie, there you go. This one's for you. And that's all part of our Long Island transformative investment project. And so we're going to be excited about that as well.
And I heard a lot of applause for off shore wind. This is the epicenter, it's happening right here my friends. Off shore wind. Long Island, you are on the front lines of everything, but also extreme weather. I don't need to describe to you what it's like. Literally the weekend before I became governor, there was another hurricane announced, and I was on the beaches of Long Island in my storm gear telling everybody, get off the beach, the storms coming.
And I made sure that people knew that this was a dangerous time, you've lived through this countless times, but we've learned enough lessons, my friends. We have to be ready, and that means investments right now. So, we are going to make sure that we lead the nation in clean energy. This is the epicenter. $ 500 million investment in my budget this year toward clean energy.
This is going to make sure that our friends like John Durso and all of the people are doing the great work are kept busy for decades to come. Let's give a round of applause to the men and women of labor who are going to build this industry. I literally was just with two cabinet secretaries on this very topic, the Secretary of Interior opening up more opportunities for licensing offshore, as well as with Secretary of Energy Granholm, who talked about how we're building the infrastructure here, Port of Albany, the turbines and the base they're being manufactured, brought down the Hudson River. The Hudson River being used for commerce like it's been doing since 1606 and bringing those parts to be assembled and put out across Long Island and the shores out here and building more jobs, an entire ecosystem that was never there before.
So we're excited about opening up those opportunities and also protecting our environment with $4 billion. I need your help, my friends. This November, this will be on the ballot. If we fail to get this over the finish line, we will not have the resources we need to build resiliency and lean hard into a future. We have a moral responsibility to make sure that this future is better for our children and Matt's grandchildren. He talked about. And when they're 30 years old, Matt, I don't want to disappoint you. I've got a couple of 30-year-old kids. I don't have any grandkids yet. So, it might take a little longer, although one is expecting, we're very excited.
We're also having the largest investment ever in the environmental protection. This is personal to me. I grew up near a steel plant. I saw what happened when Bethlehem Steel where my dad and grandpa worked, there are good paying jobs, but you could see the orange clouds - I didn't know that the sky was supposed to be blue. The sky was always orange, filled with pollution. We saw Lake Erie become a dumping ground for what looked like lava coming out of those plants.
I lived in a toxic dump. So, environmental issues are personal to me. It's amazing I'm still alive today for God's sake, but we're going to continue these investments, making sure we have the resources, places like Nassau and Suffolk get $9 million for water quality, 2 million for the center at Stony Brook. Also, I love our parks here. I love the parks here. I spend so much time and I actually opened up a boardwalk. It was a bitter cold day and they had me – somehow I was still in a dress - I had to ride a bike along the boardwalk at Jones Beach. It was fabulous. We're going to continue investing $200 million overall, 20 million for Long Island. And also making sure we have all those investments, got a long list of those as well.
Long Island was and still is the home to outstanding hospitals as well. And boy, some of them were really hard hit during this pandemic. We’re putting $10 billion of investment to help bring back and stabilize our health care industry. We need to recruit group more nurses and doctors and get more training for them because we have an incredible short - we had a shortage even before the pandemic. But also, I want to thank places like Stony Brook and Catholic health for staying with us and being there on the front lines. And Northwell, when I set out a call because I had hospitals and other parts of the state that needed people, Northwell responded, I want to thank them for what they did for us as well.
So, we're going to continue building back our healthcare economy, making record investments. As well as something I worked very closely on which are Regional Economic Development Councils. This is where I worked with Stuart Rabinowitz and Kevin Law for seven straight years, making sure that money was coming here to Long Island. We're going to keep that funding going, making sure we have $150 million in capital funding. Downtown Revitalization Initiatives, these are incredible opportunities for communities of all sizes in particular, smaller downtowns to re-imagine their future completely with $10 million. We just announced Amityville and Riverhead, those are the big winners this year. Very excited about those. When I was a local government official, if someone had given me $10 million, I would’ve thought I’d died and went to heaven. You can really change the psychology of a community with that kind of money and working on affordable housing and making sure there's connections to communities along the water where we had never made those links before and just giving a new life to downtowns. Every downtown has to have an incubator. And I think every downtown should have a brewery. So just an observation.
So, we're going to continue investing in small businesses, revitalization of downtowns, and also yes, Long Island is also blessed with incredible educational institutions. I'm not telling you something you don't already know. And we're going to lean hard into these strengths and draw more people here for an education and then have them stay here and be part of the new Long Island. That's what my vision is. And investing in particularly Stony Brook to make that a flagship organization that'll draw people from around the world who say, this is where the smartest people go. We're innovating, we're commercializing ideas, and those businesses will stay right here. So we're going to make Stony Brook one of two flagships, investing money for tuition assistance. How many people want to go to college, but they can't give up the income from their job to be able to go full-time they weren't able to get TAP assistance. So, TAP assistance will now be available for part time students giving them another lease on life. So we're going to be focusing on that.
Local education. Do you know how much money we're giving for local education here on Long Island? This is extraordinary. Total $4 billion, the Newsday headline. The Newsday headline was not wrong about that. $4 billion in investments and increase of 12 percent and also an increase in foundation aid.
As I mentioned at the outset, though, we are going to be not just socially responsible, but fiscally prudent. This is my experience working on a lot of local budgets. It has to balance. You have to plan for the future. So we will have no out year gaps going forward. Everything we're talking about is fully funded. I'm not doing this on a whim and a prayer. It is backed by hard data and that's the budget I feel most comfortable putting forward. It is going to have transformative changes in our investments, lift people up, focus on quality of life, give people a chance, help our businesses. But at the same time, I do not want to enter into long-term debt obligations that we cannot be ready for.
So, we are going to, for the first time ever, have 15 percent of our state budget, 15 percent, set aside in reserves for those rainy days in the future, because I cannot always count on the federal government, the stock market and tax revenues meeting our needs. So we're going to be smart about this. We've also set aside $2 billion extra to talk about businesses that are still hit from this pandemic, individuals who are still hard-headed and focusing on those as well.
And also affordable housing. I'm going to focus on a $25 billion initiative because what I hear on Long Island, yes, people live in wonderful communities, but their kids cannot afford to raise their own kids there either and they have to leave. And that is sad, that is tragic. Let's build back more affordability, transit, oriented development, places like Wyandanch where Babylon Supervisor, Rich Schaffer, showed me the possibilities of what we do there. Those places are the examples for the rest of our state and the rest of the nation on how we focus on building back increasing capacity, letting people live and work right there, or be close to transit to take them to their jobs. That's how we build back Long Island, these kinds of investments.
So, I'm real excited about it. I don't have a lot of control over certain things like the Islanders, but they're fantastic. I love them. But what we do have control over is how we approach our future. And I'm telling you, I am approaching this era with great possibility with great optimism and great confidence.
And I say that because I'm looking at all of you. You are the true believers. You are the ones who maybe have some friends who packed up and went to Florida. I'm telling you, you tell your friends, they are missing, what is going to be the greatest comeback in New York's history. We're doing it here and it starts right here on Long Island.
Thank you, my friends. Thank you.