One bill from last session still awaits action from Hochul

As lawmakers get the 2025 legislative session underway, Gov. Kathy Hochul still has one leftover bill from 2024 that she hasn’t yet acted on. The governor signed or vetoed most high-profile legislation before the end of the year, but she did not take any action on a fairly technical bill passed last session concerning the state’s reimbursement rate for after-4 p.m. busing in New York City. The governor now has until next week to sign it, or else the measure will be automatically vetoed – which would be the first time legislation has been automatically vetoed during Hochul’s tenure.

Sponsored by state Sen. Julia Salazar and Assembly Member Simcha Eichenstein, both of whom represent heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn, the bill aims to increase the public reimbursement rate for nonpublic school busing for students whose day ends after 4 p.m. First established in 2013, the program is used most often – though not exclusively – by yeshivas and other Jewish private schools whose academic days tend to go later than the average public school.

Although the current legislation has largely flown under the radar, the initial creation of the program in 2013 was contentious. It faced opposition from then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose administration cited cost concerns.

According to a bill memo, private schools are currently reimbursed at a rate of $16 per student per day, significantly less than the $34 per student per day that New York City pays for its own buses. The maximum reimbursement amount has grown since a decade ago to account for more students taking advantage of the program, from $8.1 million in the 2013-2014 school year to $29.85 million plus the base amount in the current school year. The law describes the “base amount” as the amount of aid that would have been provided in the 2012-2013 school year, if the law had been in effect.

The bill currently on the governor’s desk would effectively increase the rate by $1 per student per day and would tie future reimbursement cap increases to inflation in order to account for cost of living increases. Enacting the change would cost an additional estimated $2.5 million, according to the memo.

The bill passed the Assembly unanimously. It passed in the state Senate with just two no votes – one of which was state Sen. John Liu, chair of the New York City Education Committee. Liu did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the bill.

Eichenstein would not comment on the legislation other than to say he hopes the governor signs it. Salazar did not return requests for comment about the bill. A spokesperson for the governor earlier this month said that Hochul is reviewing the legislation but offered no additional details.

If Hochul doesn’t act on the legislation before next week, it would get “pocket vetoed.” Usually, a governor has 10 days, minus Sundays, to act on a bill delivered to her desk before it automatically becomes law. But any legislation sent after lawmakers officially adjourn has a 30-day period, at the end of which it is automatically vetoed. In practice in New York, that means the governor has roughly a month at the start of a new year to make a final decision on any bills she didn’t act on before the end of the previous year.

Pocket vetoes are relatively uncommon. Hochul has not utilized the practice since she took office in 2022. Her predecessor, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, last made use of the pocket veto at the start of 2021 for a bill that would have created a commission to study high-speed broadband expansion.