Organizations representing home health workers are trying to convince Gov. Kathy Hochul to reverse a provision tucked into last year’s state budget that left many providers without a much-needed revenue stream while boosting funds flowing to a powerful politically connected union.
The provision decreased a state-funded supplement for the wages of home health workers and was quietly slipped into the deal after weeks of negotiations behind closed doors.
Simultaneously, lawmakers agreed to increase funding for an obscure health department program that directs cash to home health agencies primarily affiliated with the powerful healthcare workers union, 1199 SEIU.
Organizations representing home healthcare workers are now venting their frustrations over the agreement and are calling on lawmakers and the governor to reverse it in this year’s budget.
“We were shocked when the budget deal was announced last year that expected home healthcare aides, a group largely of immigrant women working their first job in the U.S, to pay for their increase in the minimum wage increase with a reduction of benefit,” Connor Shaw, political director for Home Healthcare Workers of America, a union representing some agencies in New York, told The Post.