Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Highlights FY 2025 Budget Investments in the Finger Lakes

Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul highlighted FY 2025 Budget investments in the Finger Lakes region during a visit to Monroe Community College in Rochester. The Governor announced $50 million in one-time Federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funding to support locally driven anti-poverty initiatives throughout the state, including $25 million for Rochester; the creation of the One Network for Regional Advanced Partnerships to create workplace development centers in four high-impact locations across Upstate New York; $13.75 million in capital improvements at Monroe Community College, including $10 million for the Applied Technology Center STEM addition; and $30 million to expand intensive Treatment Opportunity Units at the Finger Lakes Development Center. Governor Hochul also announced that the Village of Waterloo will receive $10 million in funding as the Finger Lakes winner of the seventh round of the Downtown Revitalization Initiative. The Village of Webster and the Town of Macedon will receive $4.5 million each as this year’s Finger Lakes region NY Forward winners. 13 Finger Lakes localities, including Waterloo, Webster, and Macedon, join 123 localities statewide in launching applications to become Pro-Housing Communities.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the Governor's remarks 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:

Good morning. Dr. Burt-Nanna, you have done an extraordinary job here. I've been coming here since I was a Congressional Candidate originally, and then a member of Congress and this was part of my district, the people you represented, 23,000 students and growing. And I think that's a credit to your success, but also the way that this institution is leaning so hard into the industries of the future and training our young people to take those jobs that are finally coming to Upstate.

Let's give our President another round of applause. When I toured this facility when I was in Congress, they made me a little metal flag. The welding students did, and then I took it to Washington with me, and I don't know if you know this, but it had my name, it also had MCC. So, I always thought about this institution and I'm proud I could keep thinking about this and bringing programming back here and opportunities to showcase what you're doing, and I just want to acknowledge some of the people you've heard their names, but these are incredible leaders that we are blessed to have here in the Finger Lakes region. And I want to start with our State Senator Jeremy Cooney. Thank you for all the great work you do. You get, you are over there. Also Assemblymember Harry Bronson, the Dean of our Rochester delegation Assemblymember Jen Lunsford, Assemblymember Sarah Clark, Assemblymember Demond Meek, Assemblymember, Brian Manktelow, and of course our County Executive Adam Bello and our Mayor Malik Evans, who are great friends of mine, and Rochester Chamber Commerce, CEO, and President Bob Duffy, who knows a little bit about some of the jobs I've held before.

With the support of the industry, we've made significant investments in this region over a number of years. Rock the Riverway – this is a beautiful, exciting place, finally tapping into what it was always there, but never people saw the fuel, the full potential of this part of our city and really enhancing the waterfront for its tourists and improving the quality of life and I'll digress for a minute because I often do. One time my husband and I brought our boat from Buffalo along the Erie Canal, and we said, let's explore the Genesee River. Let's see how far we can go. And we anchored as far as we could go. And I was new at this – I tied the ropes around the post at the end, and we stopped in for lunch, had a lovely time, got a little windy. We come outside and our boat is almost floating away because I didn't tie the ropes very good. We're diving off the dock under the boat and just barely made it. So, I have great fond memories of coming down that area. Always a sense of adventure, but also, within last year, we— two years ago, we set aside millions to create the High Falls State Park and how beautiful to have a state park in an urban area like this and see it in the middle of a bustling downtown. You give people that sense of peace and calm and I love that. I loved our state parks.

Also, just what we've done to transform communities and continue the work that was started – $100 million, we put in our Budget a couple years ago to fill in the northern section of the inner loop, and what has happened to that part of our city? I talk about all over, say, this is what we can be doing in other communities like Buffalo that are looking at an opportunity to fill some of the holes that were created when people created infrastructure that drove people out of our cities instead of investing in them. So, I want you to know how much I brag about this area. When I was Chair of the Regional Economic Development Councils, I came here all the time to celebrate the emergence of new industries and rethinking places like Eastman Business Park that have been given up for dead a long time ago because people weren't sure of its future. But I'll tell you one thing about the people of the Finger Lakes region in Rochester – you never stop believing in this community, you know you live in a place that is built on the DNA of others who came before with such great vision and the innovation that was created here, and the jobs that followed. And so those industries may not last forever in the same form they were before, but if you're ready for them and you embrace them, there's always the new industries of the future, they're waiting to be tapped into. And that's why we're talking about semiconductors. That's why we're talking about artificial intelligence here in the State of New York and this community college, along with our other great academic institutions there are poised and ready to capture the moment and that's what I find so exciting about coming here.

So, I want to talk for a few minutes about how we shepherd in this new era of prosperity, our 2025 Budget. It's ambitious. It's ambitious, but everything we do is ambitious here in the State of New York. It's a $233 billion plan that does what people thought was impossible. We're raising spending by $6 billion on programs that we believe in, investing in our people without raising state income taxes. Now, that's hard for some to do. But if you've done municipal budgets a long time, like I have, I spent 14 years in local government balancing it all – not raising taxes, but also making sure we provide services and also we want to fight the right fights and make sure that people know that we're willing to step out of that comfort zone, and maybe the popular zone to do what's right for the people of New York. And it takes courage. But I have a Legislature. I have my desire to work with them, and I believe that by the end of this next session, we'll have many, many, many accomplishments that we will be proud to talk about here.

And I want to talk about some of the highest priorities I've had since I took office. We were dealing with a crisis in crime, the amount of crime that went up during the pandemic and immediately in the aftermath and all over our cities, but also the suburbs and rural areas. People had this sense of unease, and I knew one issue that was really tormenting the City of Rochester was gun violence, and we had many, many conversations about this. So, I'm proud to say that after a strategic investment and a concerted effort we've driven down gun violence by more than a third, and we're already off to a good start here. Statewide shootings are down another 25 percent this January, but we're never going to grow complacent. Never say we're done. We're not spiking the football. And that's why I've invested another $347 million into this whole initiative to keep fighting gun violence in our cities in particular.

And what I want to do is deal with other crimes that we have. We have retail theft. Retail theft. People thought for years wasn't a major problem, but guess what? There are gangs out there getting young people to go into stores and sweep the shelves, and then they sell it on online platforms like eBay. So, the poor people in retail are getting so ripped off. The small businesses, these mom-and-pop shops, like the little shop I helped my mom start in the Village of Ham, the little flower shop, they can't ever trust anymore that when the door opens and someone comes in, that they won't be robbed as a result of that encounter. And it's frustrating and a lot of people who work in these jobs are getting hurt. I want to make sure that we have any assault on a retail worker who's out there exposed without protection, that crime is, that is treated as a more serious crime. So, we're protecting our communities, $25 million of a State Police detail. And I'm using our State Police in ways they've never been used before. I've increased their ranks. I'm deploying them on our streets and in programs wherever I see a problem. So, I'm having them focus on connecting the dots on retail theft because it is a statewide phenomenon.

Also, hate crimes – hate crimes are escalating. And I'm talking about antisemitism and islamophobia, but racist crimes are also spiking as well. So, there's something happening to the fabric of society, and I want to let people know that we are not tolerating this in the State of New York that will stand up for all of our people. And I'm dedicating $35 million in additional funding to help fight hate crimes. And also, domestic violence, one of those quieter crimes – you don't see it in the streets, but it's still playing out in our communities with, in homes and where people are getting attacked and brutalized by a known partner. And we're dedicating money, $40 million to help fight the specter of domestic violence in our home – something my mother and our family were dedicated to for many years.

And I want to focus on Rochester for a minute. After we had seen the numbers go up a few summers ago and the violent crimes and the shootings in our streets. I literally sat down with the Mayor, our Chief of Police here and everyone else involved, the District Attorney. We had a lot of forums, in-person and zoom calls and said, what do you need? And the Mayor asked for more boots on the ground. We sent State Police, literally State Police officers walking the streets embedded with Rochester PD to give them the extra help they need. Bring technology, bring license plates, readers, whatever you need to solve this problem. I said, we are there for you. And normally the state government would not be involved in local policing issues. I don't know when we had a former chief of police here. Bob Duffy, I don't think that was the norm. But every city's important to me. People's security's important to me and I don't care I will bring the money and resources wherever we can.

And so, we've been successful, and I congratulate you and this Mayor in this county, and everyone has been working so hard. Shootings have dropped almost 30 percent here as well. Murders have dropped almost 30 percent and it's extraordinary, but we have to keep it going. The other area, we saw a big spike, and I've been here a lot on crime, but luckily, we're seeing better numbers are the rise in car thefts, and you all know about the TikTok video. We talked about this when I came here in the fall, that there were young people challenging each other to steal Hyundai's and Kia's, and two things to note there. They were showing how you can use the charger for your iPad and your cell phones to be able to literally start the ignition in these cards that don't tell me it's that easy. I went in into an impoundment lot and saw it was that easy. And so, they fixed the glitch with the new vehicles. But guess what? Those are low-cost vehicles. There's a lot of used ones out there, so think about who drives them. These are not people who also have a Lexus in the garage just in case their Hyundai gets stolen. These are people, this is probably their only vehicle and they're working the low-wage jobs and they get up at the crack of dawn to go their jobs and they look outside, and their car is gone, and they don't have the ability to take time off work to go down and fight. It is plaguing the lowest income people in our society. So, we came here, we worked together once again with the Mayor and the County Executive, and the police and law enforcement, sheriffs and DAs and everybody saying, what can we do about this? And we came up with a plan at the state level. And as a result of this, more resources, more intelligence gathering, car thefts have dropped 50 percent since that time in Rochester alone.

So that's what happens when you partner state resources and a commitment with local officials and say, we can help solve this together. So, since September 15 when I launched this, we're seeing great progress. We're not, again, not saying we're done. But I want to make sure everybody knows that we are right on top of all these quality of life issues as well. But there's another issue that continues to challenge people in every corner of the State, from the smallest communities to the largest and that is mental health. And this is a topic we were not talking about much before the pandemic. It was always there, but it’s really been exacerbated since the isolation and the despair that was resulting from the pandemic because so many people were disconnected from their normal support systems. And I'm talking a lot about our young people as well. If you think that every teenager came out of the pandemic just fine, you haven't talked to a teenager lately. I've gathered them all around the State, and they're very honest about what happened to them during that time. And finding out that they lost their grandmother and never had a chance to say goodbye. And some of their friends in school got sick. And the uncertainty of having anybody that can talk to them, an adult who cared about – even if it was just a year, it made a huge difference, and we cannot ignore that phenomenon.

We can no longer ignore this, because if we don't treat young people now while they're still in school, they're going to be relegated to a lifetime of needing help as well. And it could only get worse. So we're taking this seriously. Our mental health system failed New Yorkers for too long, and since I took office, as I said, it's been disinvested in and no one cared about it enough. They didn't have a large population of very politically influential people, so their voices were not heard. Guess what? We hear them. We hear them loud and clear. So mental health funding, with the support of the Legislature, has risen 45 percent, and we're now up to $4.8 billion – a dramatic increase.

It's not just about the money, it's the programming behind the money as well. As I mentioned, focusing on young people, we're dedicating $45 million extra so we can have school-based mental health centers available for our kids.

When you think about it, it's hard to get an appointment, it's hard to find somebody to take care, it might take months. Your child's been talking about suicide or posting things that are scary, even if you're aware of them – most people are not aware of what their kids are doing online – and your child finally says, “I want to get help,” and it takes so long. If they could just do that in school, just go down the hall and see someone, it could be life-changing for them.

And some people require more services than others. We’re going to be focusing more money on intensive services for young people and adults. So we're dedicating $30 million right here in the Finger Lakes alone to develop 13 intensive treatment units right here at the Finger Lakes Developmental Center. We have to have a place when people have fallen, they need help, someone to lift them back up, we have to have a facility that can be professionalized around them and help them get the services they need.

So we're going to provide people with serious issues the beds and the resources. And also, there's something we should not overlook – many groups of people are suffering from mental health challenges, you think about our veterans, those who served overseas, especially during the Iraq war. People had two, three, four deployments. Afghanistan, I had a cousin who went over and the second time he came back, he was fine, the third time things were very different. They see things. They experience things. And so, we have to be more open for these individuals as well as our law enforcement members. It is shocking to me to know that our first responders, our police officers who see life and humanity at its very worst, they're being affected by this.

It's only natural. And their concern is – and I've spoke to many of them – if they raise this as a challenge, “I'm having depression problems, I have some concerns,” but they ask for help, they'll be ostracized, and they're afraid of losing their jobs. So they go into a place of silence. The suicide rate for law enforcement is 30, I'm sorry, 60 percent higher, 60 percent higher than the average population. Think about that. So we want to help with our veterans who are struggling. We're going to be helping with our law enforcement, $900,000 right here in the Finger Lakes for our veterans in particular and $13 million statewide to help our law enforcement get training. Let people know that they just need some help. Sometimes a helping hand can get them through a rough patch.

And also $21 million more in this area to transform our health care options; capital projects that have been long neglected. So that's what we've been focusing on: people's health, mental health, physical health.

But also it does come down to getting the best start, start in life and that comes from the education we deliver to our kids. We all know that this is the foundation of a prosperous life, ultimately. That they have to start out with the foundations. And I want to talk about how we can support our kids. And we are doing an amazing job in terms of the resources we are dedicating to schools, historic investments in education.

Now, since I took office, New York has increased its school aid by the largest amount ever. $5 billion. $5 billion more. Now look at this chart, look at where education funding was over the last couple of decades. Pretty modest, some drops, and then it was fairly stable up until something happened – I became the Governor. You see those spikes? Look at those spikes. And fully funding Foundation Aid for the first time ever. I want people to absorb those numbers.

We're making up for lost time, focusing on our teachers, our schools, our kids. But I also want to be honest with all of you. I find it hard to believe that anybody thought last year that we could do this every single year and keep adding to it. We had to make up for lost time, but if you still see how much more we're spending on education, when people say there's cuts, it's simply saying, we want more than we got last year and anything short of that is a cut. But remember this chart when you're talking to people because we are still so much higher than we were even two years ago, so schools are far better off. We also have to make sure we're on a path we can sustain, so we're not going to see increases that size every year. You make up for lost time, you stabilize, and you give the modest increases to the school districts who need it. And I think it's great that so many of our school districts are benefiting from over $10 billion in reserves right now.

That's a good dynamic. That's money from COVID, that's money from the State. But when school districts are sitting on 10 billion in reserves, almost 2 billion of which is above the State cap of what you're allowed to have, then we need an honest conversation. Let's just have an honest conversation. And the last dynamic we all need to know is that our school population has declined. Funding is based on a formula put in place in 2008. We had a lot more members of Congress back then, we had different – larger population, especially Upstate, we don't have that now.

So we're paying for empty seats in classrooms. 20 percent decline in this region, some parts of our State up to 32 percent decline in population. So I'm just asking everybody to look at this with a reasonable eye of what we should be doing and having that conversation beginning this year and into the next year.

Foundation Aid grew by 33 percent since the last time. Here in the Finger Lakes, our Budget this year boosts funding by $27 million, a total commitment to this region alone of $2.6 billion for education in the Finger Lakes. So if anybody says we're starving our schools, please tell them to look at the data. Look at the data. So these are investments with a long-term view toward making sure that kids do grow up healthy and happy and give them the best shot in life. This is my commitment. This is the size of my commitment. I'm from public schools, my family is public schools, my kids are public schools, I believe in public schools, and I'll never starve them. But I'll make sure they have the funding that they need.

And we also want to talk about not just kids while they're younger, but also the kids who are going to our schools. Great places like MCC here and I mentioned semiconductors and AI, this is going to be revolutionary what we're doing here in the State of New York.

We've already started with semiconductors. I'll be leaving here to go up with Senator Schumer and the Secretary of Commerce from Washington to announce a huge expansion of GlobalFoundries, which was started decades ago, but it's continued to grow and grow, capture more market share. But also you all know about Micron coming, and I'm so excited about this. President Biden and I announced this with Chuck Schumer back, I think it was October 4 of last year in 2022 – what a great story to tell. When people say we are not open for business, we're not friendly for business, Micron could have gone to any State in the nation, and they chose New York.

They know that the quality of life here is exceptional. I spent countless hours selling them on the culture of Upstate, the communities, the vibrancy, the variety of housing you can have living on one of the beautiful Finger Lakes or heading north up to the mountains. Also, our urban areas, downtowns are so cute and charming, Erie Canal. But then I also talked about how the work ethic here is second to none. We are built on that legacy of the Eastman Kodak and the Bausch + Lomb and all those companies where you worked hard, you put in a long day, but you were loyal to your company. You stayed as long as they were there. And that's not how it is in other parts of our country, my friends. We take that for granted here. But that's what employers see and they tell me they recognize it.

So that is one of our secret powers here in Upstate that employers are starting to realize, and that's why they're coming. And I said, with respect to AI, whoever dominates this next era of artificial intelligence will own the future. And as soon as I thought of that I said, and that future must be in the Empire State. And that's why we're investing State dollars this year and a consortium with our public sector universities, SUNY and CUNY, seats at the table as well as Cornell, Columbia, RPI, NYU. And the private sector is stepping up. We've already amassed just starting over $400 million combined to dedicate toward building one of the most powerful supercomputers on the planet.

We're doing it down the road at the University of Buffalo, building on their engineering program. But those jobs are not far away. The spin-off opportunities are going to continue coming down the I-90 corridor, and you don't have to be there. The jobs are not necessarily focused there. It's access to this from all over, from every classroom in our State. And that's what we're going to talk about harnessing, in a way that no other State could have imagined or envisioned.

And people are saying that they think this is bold and audacious. I said, yes, but that's who we are. That's who we are. I'm so excited about this possibility. This past weekend was Black and Hispanic Puerto Rican Caucus weekend in Albany. Do you know what the topic of the conversation with these thousands of people gathering was?

The topic was embracing the future of AI. I'm energized by this. I'm so proud to see that my colleagues in government see that this is that moment when Silicon Valley blossomed after investments, people believed in it. People are believing it here the same way, and we are going to own this. So, this is what we're doing. And I know that the young people here at Monroe Community College are already ready for this, right Madam President?

And I know that they're ready to harness this era as well. So we're investing in our universities. My next point is, I'm putting money back in our public institutions, $207 million for SUNY and CUNY operations and $14 million going right here at MCC.

I rounded up, Madam President. It's $13.8, but I think I'll spot you the extra, okay? Since I announced it. Okay. Find her the money. And $10 million to expand the new relocation project at the Applied Technology Center, which is what I visited before, which is where they made the welding project. I've been there. It's extraordinary.

And these young people already have jobs waiting for them. They don't even have to go out and look. Employers are coming to them saying, we want you. I even saw this in a high school program. I was at a program in Orleans, Niagara. They had students in high school learning welding, and those kids are being offered jobs.

This is a few years ago, I'm sure it's higher, $80,000 a year to start, and then they get a degree like this on top of it. There's no stopping them. You get two young people in a class each making $90,000 when they're 19 years old. Figure that out. That's living the American dream. They can buy Buffalo Bills season tickets with that.

So that's what I'm talking about. The quality of life is second to none because our affordability is still better than anywhere else, and people get those good paying jobs and there's no stopping them. And they can have all these great opportunities. So we also invested $17 million here last year to expand the ATC project, including the optical systems technology. So, we hope that's going well as, training the optic optics technicians.

This is actually, I'm not talking about glasses. I'm talking about semiconductors, the optics going into the semiconductors. So that's growing as well. And again, having the federal government designate the Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse as a tech hub – now, there's places all over the country that vie for this. We want it. We want it. So again, that's another feather in your cap.

So, we're investing more money into that project. And again, our money, as I mentioned, into higher education, $10 million for SUNY Brockport, $29 million for SUNY Geneseo, $2.5 million for Finger Lakes Community College to make sure that they have what they need to go forward.

You may have heard about ON-RAMP. We have these acronyms that someone has to explain to me sometimes too. But $200 million to build workforce development centers all along this corridor. You're smack dab in the middle of this corridor, right in the middle of where we're making all these first ever done investments. And this focus is going to say that we're going to be training people for these jobs.

We're going to have those workforce development centers and do it in a way that works. So, $200 million along this corridor. Again, our students are going to benefit from this opportunity. But also, as we talk about these corridors and these highways, we have to talk about infrastructure and transportation. And I'm committing over $91 million dollars to the Finger Lakes region to help repair local bridges and roads.

The potholes that come out after a brutal winter, we've had a couple of them not sustained, which is what our snow industry would like to have, but we've had some whopper blizzards in parts of our State, so we need more Highway 8. And I've got all kinds of products. We talked about that.

But also, the Erie Canal as I mentioned, I've been on the Erie Canal a lot. I've seen the deterioration of some of the bridges over the Erie Canal. So, we're going to be fixing the I-490 bridge over the Erie Canal, and I’ve gone right under it. Two brand-new bridges. As we talk about the Erie Canal, how many years? 200 that this engineering feat, which is still studied in schools today, people still talk about what they did 200 years ago, how bold and almost crazy it was to dig a ditch across the entire State of New York to connect this little village known as New York City with the opportunities from Buffalo and beyond on the Great Lakes. And this is where some many of our communities came from, and we're going to be talking about some of them in a few moments, but a lot of them want to capitalize on this tourism opportunity, and to make sure that we maintain this because it's part of our story, it's part of the New York story, and it's up to us as stewards of this to protect it and make sure it's there for the next 50 to 100 years, next 200 years as well.

So, we're investing money to invest $50 million to repair the roads and locks so they can be there for a long time. So, these are the kind of investments that, you may not see them, but all you know is if they decline and you have to close the Erie Canal because you didn't make these investments. You've closed a chapter on our history, and I refuse to do that.

So, we'll make those investments, make sure that we continue that. Other investments that are important to me personally. I'm a mom. I'm the first Governor to be a mom, first Governor to be a grandma, and I worry about our kids. I worry about our kids. I worry about little kids going to school with their tummies growling, kids growing up in houses with asbestos and lead paint. I worry about kids who are living in a neighborhood where they have to worry about safety going to a playground. That's what I worry about. And I'm saddened by the fact that when you look at nationwide some of the top communities with childhood poverty are right here in New York.

They are Syracuse, Buffalo and Rochester. And what I did is we approached the Budget this year, I said tell me the top 10 zip codes with the highest childhood poverty rates in the State of New York. Four of them are in Rochester, three in Buffalo, three in Syracuse and one in the Bronx – that's the entire State. So, when we talk about where we're going to dedicate our resources – places like 14608, nearly three out of four kids are living in poverty, 73 percent poverty rate. Those kids deserve a chance. They should not be constricted to a life because of their ZIP code. They deserve to have a chance. They deserve to have a chance.

So, I want to chart a path forward to help them break this cycle, to live a life of fulfillment and dignity, and make sure that their kids and their grandkids will have a radically different outcome than the one they started out in. And that's what we're going to do. And I'm counting on this community, and I've met with the Mayor, the County Executive leader of the business community that's so vested in this to talk about how we can have a plan that works once and for all. And I know people get cynical. They've been talking about the war on poverty since Lyndon Johnson, right?

Nothing has cracked the nut, but again, this is New York. We go bigger, we go home and we're not going home from this. We're going to lean into this challenge. We're going to talk about it. We're going to talk to people who are experts and people elsewhere who've been studying this and being willing to be this model, this place of experimentation. Because of my judgment, my friends, we have nothing to lose because we're already losing this generation of kids because we didn't start before this year.

Okay. That's what irritates me. That's what frustrates me as the Governor of the State. I'm impatient for change and I don't want to walk those neighborhoods and look in those kids' eyes and say, “I'm sorry, we failed you.” Failure is not an option. We know that phrase. That has been said before by Susan B. Anthony. Failure is not an option. And I know you know that here in Rochester, so we're going to have a targeted approach. I'm going to be hands-on all over this one.

So, we're going to have a targeted approach. I'm going to be hands-on all over this one. I'm going to tell you, just like we came after the gun violence problem, which people had no idea how we could possibly solve, we brought in state resources and said, “Here, let's work in partnership. Let's jump into this together.” And I believe that's the energy that we need to bring to this issue of childhood poverty, at least in these ZIP codes. Let's start somewhere. Let's give people hope.

Across Upstate New York, we're dedicating $50 million, and I said, I want $25 million going right to Rochester, right to the City of Rochester. We have to dedicate this money. And I thank our leaders for caring enough about these kids to give them a better shot in life. Thank you.

We're going to look at job training. We're going to look at home ownership. We're going to look at all these possibilities, and when I mention home ownership and homes, these kids need to grow up in a home that is safe and loving and give them the chance that they too can someday grow up and have a home, perhaps in the same neighborhood, in a safe neighborhood.

We talk about affordability issues in the State of New York, and this is top of mind for most New Yorkers. Life has gotten so hard, it truly has. You come out of COVID, you think you're going to be okay, then you get slammed with inflation and the interest rates go up. Even if you thought you were going to buy a place someday, and the interest rates say, “No, you're going to have to wait longer.” You have to wait longer. You have to postpone the American Dream.

And we talk about the cost of everything going up in the stores. I think about these little kids. I think about the cost of formula and diapers and the fact that they need a different size sneaker every couple of months it seems. They outgrow their clothes. Parents have been hit so hard by the high cost of inflation, but the number one cost for any family is what they're paying for either their rent or their mortgage. Those are the two biggest drivers. And you know what it's driven by? Supply and demand – real simple. If you build more housing, if you have more to choose from, it automatically drives down the price.

But when you don't have the courage to build and the NIMBY-ism rules out as it has in most of our State, all of a sudden there's paralysis. You've not grown. Therefore, those who own the houses and have the apartment buildings, they can charge whatever they want because where else are you going to go? So, we're held captive to the lack of supply in our State.

I say no more. I brought this up last year. People thought that this was a bad place for a Governor to go, but it's not going to win you a lot of popularity contests. I'm telling you right now, I don't care about popularity contests. I care about doing the right thing for the people of this State. And what we did by introducing this conversation last year with a lot of naysayers saying you'll never change the status quo. Why are you doing this? The New York Times said, I'm the first Governor since Rockefeller even talked about housing, because it's so volatile. People are so dug in. Guess what? One year later, this is top of mind for New Yorkers and our legislature, and I know if we willing to step out of our comfort zone and just put the naysayers over here and go forth with the courage and the determination that has always defined New Yorkers, I believe that we can be successful. Let's get it done. Let's start building more housing in the State of New York starting right now. And are you with me on that? Are you with me? Because that is what's holding us back.

And it's not just our cities. Our rural areas are struggling. Our suburban areas are struggling. We have talked about how we can support rural housing assistance. We're introducing more money for programs there. 1,200 units across the Finger Lakes in rural areas I'm focusing on, but also our statewide measures. We have $25 billion on the table right now that is being spent to build or preserve over 100,000 affordable housing units. But think about what I just said – 100,000 units sounds great, except our State is about 800,000 short, but to get even the 100,000, it costs 25 billion of state dollars.

So, we need the private sector to step up. We need local communities to do their part, and I'm doing even more this year. I said, okay, let me see what else I can do as the Governor. I looked at all the state properties – former prisons, former psychiatric centers, even little spaces, parking lots next to a transit station. Whatever I could get my hands on, I said, “Can I put a house there? Can I put house there? Can I put a project there?” So, we're dedicating half a billion dollars to build on state property, but again, our assessment says that'll get me about 15,000 units, which is 15,000 more than I have right now, but it still doesn't give me the scale that I need to solve the problem.

So, we can't fight this alone. We're asking communities to step up and what I've done, because last year everybody says no, don't tell them they need to build. Don't tell them they have to because no one will like that. Okay? They said we need some carrots. So, I did a press conference a couple weeks ago. I found the biggest juiciest carrots I could find, and I plunked them down on the table. I said, I'm putting carrots on the table because you asked for it. $650 million of carrots. What does that mean? I took all the discretionary state programs I could think of and I said, okay, communities, if you want to play ball, if you're willing to dedicate yourselves as being a pro-housing community, what does that mean?

You have to pass a resolution in your city council or town board – wherever you do this, county legislature – pass a resolution that commits to housing growth, breaking down zoning barriers, having strategic plans. Show us how you're going to do that, and we'll put you on our pro-housing list. And guess what? At first, there weren't very many. We only had 20. And then all of a sudden people realize, wait, there's $650 million that's going to go to 20 communities? I want my share. So, all of a sudden, we had this spike, and I was so happy to see it. Look at this. I don’t know if you can see this very well, but see all those little stars? Some of them have been approved already – the green ones. The other ones just started their applications.

We have probably 120 now, just in a couple of weeks, and I still have more space to fill in. These are the communities that have stepped up and say, our employers want their employees to live here. Our families want to raise their kids here. Our first responders want to be able to live in the community that they protect. Our teachers want to be able to afford to live in a community where they teach. That's what we're talking about. That's all this conversation is about. I didn't say what kind of housing you had to build. I didn't say where you had to build it. Just start building. Start building now, and especially, I believe that people coming from other parts of this country where they think, even New York, think nothing of an hour commute, an hour and 15-minute commute – that's not a big deal.

We are going to be having people who work at Micron, living in this metropolitan area, in the Finger Lakes region who need housing as well. You have an opportunity to lure them here, let them see the quality of life that you have here in the Finger Lakes. But we have to start building and start building fast.

So, any community that's out there that is not part of this list, you're not going to be eligible for Downtown Revitalization programs or our Main Street programs or many of our other programs. We put them all together, so if you want to get part of it, step up right now. As I mentioned, those programs – DRI, Downtown Revitalization, New York, Forward, I love them both. These are great programs. I've seen communities transform with this. For the DRI, it's a $10 million infusion of money all at once.

Now I take, again, my local government experiences to find how I am as Governor. I knew how hard it is when I was trying to get something done in our little downtown villages, Village of Blaisdell and the Village of Hamburg. And maybe you could someday get $50,000 from a Main Street branch. You get 75,000 from a Department of State grant, or maybe some water. It took you forever to amass any volume of money that would make scale look different, you could actually transform a downtown. So, we said $10 million can change not just the physical structure of a community, but the psychology of a community.

And I've seen this all over the State of New York, but I also heard from our smaller communities who says, we love the idea, but we're not participating because $10 million is a lot for us. We're just a little more than an intersection and some little businesses, and we think we matter too. So, I said, yes, you do. So, we have a program for $4.5 million for the smaller communities. $4.5 million in the small community, changes it forever. So, these are areas I'm really focused on.

These will be available to these pro-housing communities, and I'm really proud to make some announcements today because we have selected those communities and proud to announce that this year's $10 million winner goes to the Village of Waterloo, the winner of our Downtown Revitalization Initiative. Waterloo, stand up. Waterloo is in the house. Congratulations.

I was in Waterloo many times. I've voted there, I've docked there. I was there for Memorial Day last year and they have the National Memorial Day Museum. And don't let any other part of America think that they're the birthplace of Memorial Day because it is in, it's in Waterloo, New York and only Waterloo, New York. I know that.

It's a gorgeous community – tree-lined streets steeped in history, community arts and centers. I want to thank Mayor Walter Bennett and for his plan for a more walkable village. His vision is extraordinary. We've talked about this, and I know he wants to build more housing and have more small businesses and easy access to the Cayuga Seneca Trail or the canal, which is so beautiful. So, I believe that this is a plan which is going to be extraordinary and transformative. So again, congratulations. $10 million to the Village of Waterloo.

Two other smaller communities that truly matter. We're announcing $4.5 million New York Forward Awards. One to the Village of Webster. Congratulations, Webster. Please stand up! Well done. And one to the Town of Macedon. Macedon in the house. Congratulations!

Now Webster, you have a lot of work to do because I worked really hard to line up Fairlife's $650 million investment in dairy production. 250 new jobs coming. And I'll tell you how involved I got in this. I knew this CEO out in California was looking all over – Wisconsin, all these other places. I called him up and I said, “I don't know if you know this about me. I'm obviously the Governor, but I come from a long line of dairy farmers in Ireland. “And I went to visit one year, one summer during college. I was told by my family and they're deep Irish brogue that “Kathy, you're just not going to make it as a farmer's wife.” Because I left the gate open, and all the cows left. So, I decided I needed a different career than herding the cows. So, that all worked out just fine. But I said I love dairy. I represented Wyoming County and many counties around here that are the best – anybody from Wyoming? There we go. Hi, Cindy. I said, “Wyoming County has about 40,000 cows and about 20,000 people or so.” and I said, “I knew all the cows’ names when I was a member of Congress.” So, I know this industry. I know the potential If you come here and invest in making this a top dairy producing place. They wanted to have the largest dairy production facility in the Northeast, and now they're going to make Webster their home. So, in addition to your New York Forward Initiative, you are also going to have a chance for explosive growth, and I'm so excited for you.

So again, congratulations to Webster.

And your event spaces and everything you're going to do is going to be incredible as well. And then last but not least Macedon. I've been there many times. You want to have a new downtown square and new housing. And just really create this sense of community and strengthen it – strengthen those bonds you have there and access to the waterfront. And so, I just want to say all three of these communities are just what makes New York State so spectacular. The individual identities of each and the civic pride. And the elected officials and the community leaders and the businesspeople who stepped up and put these plans forward together, I know there's countless community.

I shared all these efforts when I was in local government. I know what it takes. The time away from your families to get this done. So, I'm so proud of all of you and you are a model for other communities to do exactly the same. And I know that future generations will forever be grateful for all the work you put in.

Congratulations to Mayor Darrell Byerts and also the Town Supervisor Kim Leonard from our two New York Forward communities as well. Let's give them another round of applause.

So today to wrap up, we talked a lot about the dollars, the investments and talked about this region's path to prosperity. And this area does deserve a great future it has it in its hands because we talk about the amazing past, the legacy of accomplishment here, the innovation, the smart people that we attracted here, or that we're homegrown. And this area's always been on fire. It really has and I want to make sure we never lose that sense possibility here. So, to all of you who never gave up on this region during some really tough times, through some crime waves and through covid and through the businesses who left and decided to go to other States or even other Countries. We are back. We are back stronger than ever, and the future is brighter. And I know because of the people in this room and out there who are so dedicated, so selfless, who love their community so deeply that we truly are going to continue our preeminence as the Empire State. So, thank you everyone for listening. Thank you for being part of shaping New York's history but also the future. Thank you very much.