By Staff Reporter
BUFFALO — The Center for Elder Law and Justice does the work first and waits for New York State to pay for it. Lately, its chief executive says, the wait keeps getting longer.
“It’s getting worse every year, in terms of how we get paid and the length of time it takes to get paid … If I don’t get paid, I have two choices,” Karen Nicolson, the Buffalo legal aid group’s CEO, told Buffalo Toronto Public Media on Tuesday. “I can borrow money until I get paid — because you get paid after you do the services — or I can lay off my staff for a few months, or longer, until the money comes in.”
Ms. Nicolson was one of several Western New York nonprofit leaders, along with the Partnership for the Public Good’s executive director, Andrea Ó Súilleabháin, who are pressing Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign two contracting bills the Legislature passed in June. About 900 nonprofits across the state back the legislation, BTPM reported.
What the bills would do
The bills are S.9855/A.11179 and S.9761/A.10741, sponsored by state Sen. Shelley Mayer and Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, both Westchester County Democrats. According to a June 5 statement from a coalition including the New York Council of Nonprofits, they would set clearer payment timelines, tighten accountability, widen access to bridge loans and keep minor paperwork problems from holding up payments.
The centerpiece is money up front. Nonprofits would get an early payment of 25% of a contract within 30 days, and agencies would have to give clear payment schedules.
Megan Allen, the Council of Nonprofits’ CEO, said groups also want the state to pay part of their overhead. “Things like insurance, electricity, our overhead costs. We’re not asking New York State to pay for all of those overhead costs,” she told BTPM. “Just the percentage related to the program that we are providing for New York State.”
How much the state owes
The coalition’s May 2025 report, “Nonprofits in Peril,” found that one in three nonprofits with state contracts were owed money for services already delivered, and that the state owed nonprofits at least $650 million, according to the coalition. Its survey also found 65% of nonprofits were worried about paying for basic operations in 2025.
A January 2025 report from the state comptroller’s office found that more than half of the state’s contracts in 2023 were executed late, Central Current reported. When a contract is late, the work often goes on anyway, and the nonprofit carries the cost.
“For years, providers have been forced to absorb the costs of the State’s inefficient contracting system — taking on debt, draining reserves, and diverting resources away from services while waiting to be paid for work already completed,” Kristin Brown, CEO of the Empire Justice Center, said in the coalition’s June statement. The Rochester-based group’s budget is more than 70% funded by state contracts, she told Central Current last year.
Third time
Ms. Hochul has vetoed versions of this reform before, in December 2024 and again in December 2025. Last year’s bill would have required 25% advances, a 15% administrative-cost rate on state contracts and interest on late payments.
In her 2025 veto memo, the governor wrote that mandatory advances would “run afoul of the state constitution” and could send money to groups that had not been fully vetted, and that interest payments would carry a “significant cost to the state,” according to Central Current. “This bill raises serious legal and fiscal concerns and increases the risk of fraud and abuse of state funds,” she wrote.
She also directed her Office of Customer Experience to look for administrative burdens that slow nonprofits down.
Advocates say this year’s bills answer her objections, BTPM reported.
“Nonprofits are the backbone of our communities,” Ms. Paulin said in June. “That is why I’m proud to pass legislation A.10741 and A.11179 with my colleague State Senator Shelley Mayer, which delivers the contracting reforms our nonprofit sector sorely needs to be paid on time when they show up for New Yorkers every day.”
What comes next
In New York, bills passed in June often aren’t sent to the governor until late in the year, and Ms. Hochul has acted on earlier versions in December. If she vetoes them again, the Legislature could override with two-thirds votes in both houses, BTPM noted, though lawmakers rarely do.
For Western New York groups, the timing collides with federal cuts. Groups that cover the cost of state programs for months are also bracing for less federal money. Ms. Nicolson said many organizations have already had to lay off staff while waiting on the state, even though her own group has not.
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