By Teresa Mulvaney
ALBANY — Four Western New York health care providers, including two in Chautauqua County, are among the 34 picked for a five-year state program that pays hospitals and clinics to train more nurses, technicians and other licensed workers.
Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the winners Wednesday, Oct. 21, in a release listing Catholic Health System, Jericho Road Ministries, The Chautauqua Center and UPMC Chautauqua at WCA as the Western region’s recipients of the Increasing Training Capacity in Statewide Health Care Facilities grants.
The program pays out $32.5 million a year. Each award runs from $500,000 to $1 million annually, so the four Western New York grants together are worth between $2 million and $4 million a year, or $10 million to $20 million over five years. The state did not publish how much each facility will get.
“At a time when our federal government is pulling back support for the healthcare workforce, New York is investing in training the professionals New Yorkers rely on to deliver high-quality care,” Hochul said.
One more award than the region was promised
The Department of Health’s request for applications, issued in August 2025, set a goal of “at least three awards per region.” It said the three highest-scoring passing applications in each of the state’s 10 economic development regions would be funded first, and that any money left over would go to the next-best applications statewide “without consideration of region.”
Western New York, which the state defines as Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie and Niagara counties, ended up with four. Only Long Island (four) and New York City (five) also beat the three-award floor. That means at least one Western New York application scored high enough to win on statewide merit after every region’s first three were picked.
The Finger Lakes region, which includes Rochester, got three: Newark-Wayne Community Hospital, Rochester General Hospital and the University of Rochester.
Who won in Western New York
The list mixes a large hospital system with community health centers that serve patients who often struggle to find care.
- Catholic Health System is the Buffalo-based Catholic hospital network that runs Mercy Hospital of Buffalo, Sisters of Charity Hospital and Kenmore Mercy Hospital. Staffing was at the center of the five-week strike by its Mercy Hospital workers in 2021.
- Jericho Road Ministries runs Jericho Road Community Health Center, a federally qualified health center that serves refugees, immigrants and patients regardless of their ability to pay. Its clinics include 184 Barton St. on the West Side, Doat Street and Broadway on the East Side, and a site at the Buffalo City Mission.
- The Chautauqua Center is a federally qualified health center based in Dunkirk, with a site in Jamestown.
- UPMC Chautauqua at WCA is the Jamestown hospital formerly known as WCA Hospital, which joined the Pittsburgh-based UPMC system in 2019.
The awards are not final. The governor’s office said they are “contingent upon review and approval of the Office of the State Comptroller,” which must sign off on the contracts. The grant term technically began Oct. 1, three weeks before the winners were named.
What the money can and can’t buy
The program is aimed at a narrow problem: facilities that want to train more workers but can’t afford the instructors, equipment or classroom time. The RFA says that while health care facilities “prioritize immediate care, they often lack the necessary resources to increase their ability to train – or better train – future healthcare professionals.”
Under the RFA, grants can cover tuition and fees, instructor salaries, wage subsidies for trainees, recruitment and equipment such as simulation-lab mannequins, as long as it is tied to more training slots. They can’t pay for unaccredited programs, programs that don’t lead to a state license or certification, routine orientation, or “costs related to retention agreements or employment contracts.” Building improvements are capped at 10 percent of a facility’s annual budget.
The state asked applicants to consider recruiting trainees from groups including asylum seekers and new Americans, rural residents, veterans, formerly incarcerated people and recipients of public assistance. That fits the patients that Jericho Road and The Chautauqua Center already serve.
State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said the state “is facing a healthcare workforce shortage that demands urgent action.”
“These awards empower healthcare facilities to expand their training infrastructure in ways that are responsive to their communities’ unique needs,” McDonald said.
Western New York’s workforce gap
The RFA cites the University at Albany’s Center for Health Workforce Studies, which reported in 2024 that the state faces shortages “particularly in the areas of registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and entry-level aides.”
The center’s April 2024 regional briefing on the Finger Lakes and Western New York found that 55.6 percent of registered nurses in Western New York who answered a burnout survey scored as burned out, compared with 49.9 percent statewide. It also found that from 2018 to 2022, ambulatory care was the only health care setting in Western New York where employment grew.
Western New York hospitals told the center that registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and respiratory therapists were among the hardest jobs to fill. Nursing homes and adult care facilities in the region named home health aides, licensed practical nurses and newly licensed RNs.
Assemblymember Amy Paulin, the Westchester Democrat who chairs the Assembly Health Committee, said the workforce “is not keeping up with the needs of our communities.”
“Building our workforce, improving retention, and keeping staff trained on the latest medical technology is critically important,” Paulin said.
The federal backdrop
Hochul framed the awards as a counterweight to Washington. The state said the grants are part of her “broader $10 billion healthcare investment,” much of which went to wages and bonuses. The RFA notes that the federal Health Resources and Services Administration projects shortages in allied health, behavioral health, primary care and oral health through 2036.
For Western New York’s community health centers, the timing matters. Federally qualified health centers like Jericho Road and The Chautauqua Center depend heavily on federal health center grants and on Medicaid, which the 2025 federal tax-and-spending law cuts over the next decade.
Neither the governor’s office nor the Health Department has said how many trainees the Western New York programs will serve, or which professions they will target. The applications, which were due Oct. 24, 2025, are not posted publicly. The state has not released the award amounts or training plans for the four Western New York recipients.
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