After spending the entire day at City Hall Friday to continue to advocate for senior services funding, LiveOn NY was on hand into the night to witness the “budget handshake” between Mayor de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, signaling an agreement on the FY18 City budget.
While details are still being discussed, and a final vote on the entire budget is expected this week, LiveOn NY was pleased that Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito announced an influx of $22.8 million baselined dollars for senior services funding in the FY18 budget. A City Council announcement Friday night highlighted this funding with the following graphic:
In addition, the city announced an additional allocation of $30 million in FY18 growing to $104 million in FY22 to provide enhanced resources and support to nonprofit service providers. Again, more details will be coming soon on this allocation as well as all the funding announced at the press conference.
LiveOn NY members were a vital part of the team that advocated for this funding, having sent an amazing 21,000 letters to Mayor de Blasio, Speaker Mark-Viverito and their Council Members over the last 2 months, in addition to over 300 seniors attending Advocacy Day at City Hall in May. This is an incredible show of strength of the aging network and older New Yorkers, and our members played an active and successful role in winning this funding.
LiveOn NY especially acknowledges the leadership of City Council Aging Committee Chair and champion Margaret Chin for her persistence and fierce advocacy, and who one year ago delcared that this would be the Year of the Senior. LiveOn NY also thanks Mayor de Blasio, Department for the Aging (DFTA) Commissioner Donna Corrado and the City Council under the leadership of Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Finance Chair Julissa Ferreras-Copeland and Subcommittee on Senior Centers Chair Paul Vallone. Led by Council Members Chin and Vallone, the entire City Council was instrumental in making this the Year of the Senior.
As always, we will need to gather more specifics on this funding to understand how it will be implemented, but LiveOn NY views this announcement as an important recognition of both the need for funding to allow seniors to thrive in their communities, as well as an understanding of the work senior service agencies do to make New York a better place to age. LiveOn NY will be gathering further details and will keep you apprised of specifics in the upcoming months.
Thank you for your partnership in advocacy and being part of this important work.
Mayor Bill de Blasio, City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and City Council Members at budget handshake Press Conference on June 2, 2017.
For more information, contact Bobbie Sackman, Associate Executive Director of Public Policy at bsackman@liveon-ny.org or 212-398-6565 X226 or Andrea Cianfrani, Deputy Director of Public Policy at acianfrani@liveon-ny.org or 212-398-6565 X233.