May 9, 2024

The NYS Council has been closely monitoring a bill that just this year was introduced in both houses of the NYS Legislature.  S4675(Ramos)/A8937(Bronson) (ATTACHED) is sponsored by the Chair’s of the Assembly and Senate Labor Committees.  It would establish a “Human Services Wage Board” to inquire into and report and recommend adequate minimum wages for “human services employees.”  As far as we know this effort is not ‘instead of’ Minimum Wage requirements that exist in current law.  

In the bill, “Human Services” is broadly defined to mean “any service provided to individuals or groups of individuals, for the purpose of improving or enhancing such individuals’ health and/or welfare, by addressing social problems including but not limited to: domestic violence, teenage pregnancy, migrant health problems, child abuse, nutritional deficiencies, suicide, hunger, unemployment, lack of suitable shelter, crime, drug and alcohol abuse, environmental justice, and poverty.”

Further, “Human services provider” is defined to mean any:

(a) not-for-profit or charitable organization, or

(b) local agency as defined in subdivision three of this section, that:

(i) contracts with any state agency or other public entity, as defined in subdivisions four and five of this section to provide human services as defined in subdivision one of this section, or

(ii) directly or indirectly receives any public funds to provide or contract with third persons to provide human services for the benefit of the general public or specific client groups.

There are no provisions contained within the bill that address whether the state would be required to provide funding to support the increased costs associated with it.

Please review and let us know if you have any questions or feedback. 

We will discuss this and other legislation next Thursday morning during our NYS Council Member Support and Public Policy call (5/16 at 9:15 a.m.).

For a look at the bill, see attached document.