Latest news with #statelegislature
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
NYS lawmakers to vote on involuntary commitment laws in push to address NYC's mental health crisis
Down-and-out New Yorkers suffering psychiatric issues so severe they can't care for themselves can be whisked into treatment easier under a long-awaited deal to tackle the Big Apple's mental health crisis. Involuntary commitment standards – the rules by which severely mentally ill people can be forced into psychiatric care against their will – will be expanded and loosened under an Albany budget agreement finally revealed Wednesday. Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers reached the deal over months of backroom talks prompted in part by violence in the subways, random attacks on the city's streets and Mayor Eric Adams using his bully pulpit to push for changes to involuntary commitment rules. State lawmakers will begin voting on the massive state budget package Wednesday. Hans Pennink Leaders such as Adams grew frustrated that the law previously only allowed people to be involuntarily committed if they showed a substantial risk to physically harm themselves or others. The final deal reached by Hochul and lawmakers would expand it to people who show a substantial risk of physical harm to themselves because to an 'inability or refusal, as a result of their mental illness, to provide for their own essential needs such as food, clothing, necessary medical care, personal safety, or shelter.' Additionally, someone may now be committed after sign-off from an examining physician and a nurse practitioner. Commitment used to require the sign-off of two examining physicians. Those practitioners would have three days after someone is brought to the hospital to decide whether he or she should be committed. They would be required to make attempts to contact someone's medical providers and any designated points of contact prior to ordering commitment. Hochul faced resistance on the proposal from both houses of the state legislature as well as mental health advocacy groups. The critics argued that strengthening involuntary commitment measures alone wouldn't solve the issue and that the changes needed to be accompanied by supporting other aspects of the mental health care system like follow-up care planning and supportive housing to keep people from slipping through the cracks. Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed measures making it easier to involuntarily commit severely mentally ill people earlier this year. As a result, the final deal includes additional requirements for psychiatric centers and local social services agencies to coordinate more effective discharge planning for follow-ups once someone is released from care. This includes: Providing a summary of the discharge plan to any of the person's medical providers. Making a follow-up appointment with a provider for the patient within a week or 'as soon as possible thereafter.' Giving the discharge plan to a 'post-discharge care manager' in the case of an individual with complex needs. The deal would also create a new behavioral health crisis technical assistance center at the state level to further develop protocols and best practices around involuntary commitment and deliver annual reports on the measure's effectiveness. Mental health groups had also been pushing, as an alternative to Hochul's proposal, forcing the state to conduct critical incident reviews after mentally ill people commit particularly egregious acts. Language included in the budget bill separate from the section on involuntary commitment would require the state to complete at least one critical incident review on a situation involving a fatality at least once a quarter. But the toothless provision once again lets state mental health officials off the hook by stipulating that the findings of those panels can't be released publicly.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Mammoth $254B NY state budget revealed, goes up for vote: ‘Albany at its cynical worst'
The bulk of the mammoth $254 billion state budget deal was unveiled Wednesday with some last minute self-serving quietly slipped into the batter before Albany lawmakers were set to finally vote on it. The spending plan documents — nicknamed 'The Big Ugly' in capital lingo — provide a last-minute, warts-and-all look at much-anticipated legislation focused on New York City's mental health crisis, recidivism problems and more. Gov. Kathy Hochul ran a victory lap Wednesday after a deal to revamp the state's discovery laws — a move to combat a slew of criminal cases that have been getting dismissed on technicalities. The tweaks caused a weeks-long impasse on the overall mammoth budget deal. New York Senate lawmakers debate budget bills during a legislative session in the Senate Chamber at the state Capitol Wednesday, May 7, 2025, in Albany, NY. Hans Pennink 'I said all along I would hold up a $250 billion budget on this issue,' she said. Sources have hinted to The Post that the budget's final price tag will actually be more than the $254 billion hinted by Hochul. The discovery changes will prevent criminal cases from being thrown out over trivial mistakes and narrow how much evidence prosecutors must turn over to defense attorneys. Involuntary commitment standards – the rules by which severely mentally ill people can be forced into psychiatric care against their will – will be expanded and loosened under the agreement. Hochul and state lawmakers reached the deal after months of backroom talks prompted in part by violence in the subways, random attacks on the city's streets and Mayor Eric Adams using his bully pulpit to push for changes to involuntary commitment rules. Kathy Hochul, joined by Queens DA Melinda Katz, Bronx DA, Darcel Clark, Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg and Staten Island DA Michael McMahon announce changes to State discovery laws on May 7, 2025. James Messerschmidt The budget was due April 1, but it went far over that deadline — a delay that state Sen. Jim Skoufis (D-Orange) lambasted. 'I'm sick and tired of one individual – the Governor – superseding the will of up to 213 duly elected Senators and Assembly Members,' he said in a statement. 'The current operating procedure is nothing short of authoritarian.' Albany's single-party Democratic rule also let Hochul, state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) and state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Westchester) sign off on a slew of self-serving deals for their party faithful. The New York state Capitol is seen as lawmakers vote on budget bills Wednesday, May 7, 2025, in Albany, N.Y. Hans Pennink for the NY Post The state budget package wraps in measures to help incumbents game New York's new public campaign financing system, allow lawmakers to keep collecting salaries from side jobs and assist Hochul in warding off a challenge from her estranged lieutenant governor. 'All in all, it's a generally bad Albany at its cynical worst, and we have nothing positive to say about this and how they've done this just underlines that these are self-serving changes Democratic incumbents,' John Kaehny, executive director of Reinvent Albany, told The Post. The budget also includes a highly controversial measure pushed by Orthodox Jewish communities that would make it easier for Yeshivas to demonstrate compliance with educational standards that public schools need to meet. A man who attacked an MTA worker with a hammer in the 14th St. and 8th Ave L train station in Manhattan, Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2022 is taken into custody by police at the scene. Robert Mecea for NY Post The state Department of Education required non-public schools to demonstrate their curriculums are 'substantially equivalent' to those of public schools. A 2023 investigation by the city's education department found 18 Yeshivas weren't educating students on basic English and math. 'Despite how people try to characterize this, this is not the elimination of substantial currency,' Hochul told reporters Tuesday. The new plan will give the non-public schools several other different ways to prove substantial equivalency beyond those outlined by the state education department, which is opposed to the move. Additional reporting by Haley Brown
