The FY 2025 state budget includes a 2.84% cost-of-living-adjustment, with a stipulation that agencies use some of those funds to provide a 1.7% wage increase to most staff.

This is a far cry from the 3.2% COLA and $4,000 wage increase the disability services sector needs and strongly advocated for.

A 3.2% COLA would have allowed nonprofit providers to keep up with the rising costs of food, gas, and other essentials without cutting services and programs - it also would have helped providers maintain salary levels with the cost of inflation. The separate wage investment we sought would have addressed the workforce crisis affecting the field, and brought nonprofit pay rates a little closer to their state-operated counterparts.  It would have gotten us on the path to providing a living wage as we did before the cuts to disability providers began in the Cuomo Administration.

Both of these things would have directly benefited New Yorkers with disabilities.

Tell your representatives that this is not acceptable and they need to step up for people with disabilities!