By Rick Zimmerman
The last votes were taken on the 2022-23 NYS Budget during the early hours of April 8th. This $220 billion spending plan is an extremely complex set of documents, running thousands of pages, and covering everything from roads to schools to bail reform to Buffalo Bills stadium to tax credits and much more. Agriculture’s portion of the budget pales in proportion to most all other aspects, but the funded programs undertake essential functions and services. Agricultural advocates, including leaders from the Northeast Agribusiness and Feed Alliance, worked collaboratively to assure the ag budget priorities were addressed. In this light, it was a good budget year.
An annual activity of the NYS budget adoption process is the requirement for agricultural leaders to garner legislative support for restoring funds to the many essential agricultural programs ranging from apple marketing programs to soil and water conservation districts. Governor Hochul’s Executive Budget, introduced last January, was a good starting point for budget negotiations and Agriculture Commissioner Richard Ball and Deputy Secretary for Agriculture and Food, Kevin King, deserve much credit for assuring that the Executive Budget included funding for the essential ag programs. But this annual process allows legislative leaders, most notably the Senate and Assembly Agriculture Committee Chairs, to weigh in on their respective ag program priorities. We are fortunate to have two Agriculture Committee Chairs that work well together and share our passion for a strong agriculture industry. We owe many thanks to Assemblymember Donna Lupardo and Senator Michelle Hinchey for their leadership in bringing home a state budget that includes sufficient funds for agriculture’s priorities.
NEAFA’s budget priorities focused primarily on the needs of New York’s dairy industry. Therefore, essential programs, such as the NYS Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at Cornell, the Quality Milk Production Program, PRO-DAIRY, and the Agricultural Nonpoint Source Pollution Control Program, ranked high on the NEAFA budget priority list. In addition, NEAFA joined with NEDPA leaders in advocating for additional PRO-DAIRY funds ($250,000) to support a climate leadership position within the program to lead the dairy industry forward in taking advantage of carbon reduction opportunities that are potentially beneficial for the dairy industry and will help the state meet its carbon reduction goals.
In addition to dairy centric programs, NEAFA successfully supported additional funds for the Agricultural Workforce Development Program, based at Cornell University, to help our Hispanic workforce, an increasingly prominent source of employees on New York dairy farms. Further NEAFA recognized the value of the Farm Viability Institute and New York FarmNet. Both programs had funding restored to last year’s levels.
There are three tax credits for NY farmers in the State Budget worthy of mention. First, the Investment Tax Credit was increased to 20% for farmers reinvesting in their farming operations. Second, the Farm Workforce Retention Tax Credit was doubled to $1200 per worker and extended to 2026. Third, a new refundable tax credit, to offset the overtime wages to be paid to farmworkers if the overtime threshold is lowered below 60 hours per week, was also established.
At the time of this writing, Governor Hochul has not announced if she will accept the recommendation of the Farm Labor Wage Board to lower the overtime threshold to 40 hours per week over the course of 10 years. But the overtime tax credit could be an incentive for the Governor to take such action, despite the strong recommendation by the farm community to keep 60 at 60.