New York State Rural Advocates

Stand up for Rural New York 2018 Legislative Conference

Return the form below with payment to NYS Rural Advocates: PO Box 101, Cambridge, NY 12816. Phone: 518-573-2255. Registration of $110 includes breakfast, gratuities and advocacy materials.

Rural Advocates will host a Legislative Briefing and Breakfast in the Albany Room on the Concourse at the Empire State Plaza. All Rural Advocates members are encouraged to attend. Our agenda will include an overview of Rural Advocates 2018 Legislative Agenda, updates on legislative action to date, a review of Tuesday’s legislative appointment schedules, and tips on making the ask. We want to make the most of your time in Albany. Our discussion... will focus on of YOUR rural housing concerns including our top priority of securing an increase in Rural Preservation funding and protecting the housing programs we use. We expect to be joined at the meeting by several leading members of the New York State Legislature. After a hot breakfast in the Albany Room, we move to the Capitol for legislative visits. Plan on making appointments with your Senators and Assembly Members and join with others from your region to remind your elected officials of the impact of your work. Rural Advocates will coordinate meetings with Legislative and Administration leaders. Please contact us at nysruraladvocates @gmail.com if you need assistance. See more

New York State Rural Advocates Board and guests will gather for dinner at 5:30 at the Hilton Garden Inn, Troy NY to finalize our legislative agenda on 2/26 at 5:30 pm. Dinner will be "Dutch Treat"

Dear RPC Directors and Friends of the Program As you may know, Governor Cuomo today released his proposed state budget for 2018/19. As expected, the Governor is proposing to reduce RPC and NPC funding by about one third to approximately $60,000 for each group. The Executive Budget would provide RPC with $3,539,000 from Mortgage Insurance Funds. We will be providing a full analysis of the Governor's proposed budget over the next day or two but we wanted to encourage you to jo...in Rural Advocates and your RPC colleagues in Albany on February 27 as we meet with State Legislators in hopes of restoring some or all RPC funding. Stay tuned for details. Regards Blair Sebastian and the Rural Advocates Board of Directors

President Trump will sign a Republican tax cut bill that dramatically reduces the corporate tax rate while retaining many cherished tax breaks including the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) and Private Activity Bonds (PAB) along with the associated 4% as of right tax credit. The important Historic Tax Credit is also retained but under the bill, Historic Credits will only be available for buildings on the Federal Register of historic places. The final bill also offers rea...l estate investors a 20% tax dedication against some specific forms of real estate investment. While housing advocates were successful in their efforts to convince Congress to retain the affordable housing tax credits, the ultimate value of the credits remain to be seen. By reducing the Corporate and top end personal tax rates, the investment value of the credits will be diminished and therefore it is expected that the amount of equity raised through both the 9% and 4% credit will likely be less. The final tax bill also retains the popular mortgage interest deduction though again, the value has been reduced by lowering the ceiling on the deduction from $1 million to $750 thousand. As you know, NYS Rural Advocates has been a supporter of the United For Homes Campaign’s proposal to reduce the ceiling for the MID to $500 thousand and to use the savings to fund the development of affordable rental housing and to provide a tax credit to lower income homebuyers. Congress and the President do not enact those proposed affordable housing benefits in bill. Perhaps of greater importance to nonprofit affordable housing interests, the tax bill is expected to result in the loss of more than a trillion dollars in federal revenue over the next ten years which will put tremendous pressure on Congress to reduce spending. President Trumps first federal budget proposal would have devastated affordable housing programs by eliminating HOME , CDBG and Section 502 direct loans among many other programs. The Trump proposal would have further reduced HUD Housing Counseling and would combine several smaller USDA housing programs into a fuzzy infrastructure fund. In their FY 2018 budget proposals, both the House and the Senate restore most of President Trump’s affordable housing cuts and the ongoing Continuing Resolution protects most programs at 2017 funding levels. Congress is now expected to pass yet another Continuing Resolution before the end of the year, pushing the real battle over funding into early 2018.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo released his $152.3 billion executive budget proposal Tuesday night. The Governor’s briefing materials point out that the increase in this year’s proposal is once again less than 2% and we note that this is accomplished in part by funding programs such as Rural Preservation off budget. RPC base funding of $3.539 million is provided by sweeping excess revenues from the Mortgage Insurance fund included in an Article VII bill rather that in...cluding it in one of the five regular appropriations bills. The MIF funding for RPC will be supplemented by the RPC’s share of the final $6 million installment of JP Morgan Chase settlement funds. Budget negotiations in 2016 resulted in $2 million in additional funds for RPC/NPC. Advocates will be working to have supplemental funds included in this year’s budget as well. See more