(TOP) HEAR US OUT — PEF leaders Alan Schulkin, Jim Carr, John Prince, Jennifer Faucher and Tom Donahue meet with Sen. Michael Nozzolio’s aide Justin McCarthy, on PEF Lobby Day in March to discuss restoring funding for state correctional facilities. Photo by John Epting

Union leaving no chance for legislators to forget PEF’s budget priorities

By SHERRY HALBROOK
Wherever state lawmakers turn these days they are seeing or hearing about PEF’s state budget issues.

Even before PEF President Roger Benson testified at a joint legislative hearing on the budget in February, PEF had begun running full-page ads on its budget issues in The Legislative Gazette and other publications. 

Meanwhile, PEF activists have been meeting with their legislators locally and in Albany. The members came to Albany March 2 to meet with their lawmakers about the budget issues. They have also been meeting individually with legislators in their district offices. 

PEF’s issues include saving state correctional facilities threatened with shutdown; saving state-operated mental health services in the Middletown area; blocking privatization of the state University of New York teaching hospitals; rejecting other transfer, merger and privatization proposals; as well as restoring funds for children’s services and various state programs that protect the public safety, health, food supply and the environment.

WHERE DO YOU STAND? — PEF activist Norman Light and Vice President Pat Baker talk about the state budget with state Assembly Members Carl Heastie and Luis Diaz at a Region 10 reception in January.  Photo by Bill Sachs 

And the union has sponsored legislative receptions and breakfasts across the state where activists can talk to the lawmakers in a more relaxed environment.

On the statewide level, PEF held its annual legislative reception in Albany at the annual conference of the Black and Puerto Rican Legislative Caucus in mid-February. 

In New York city, Region 10 held a reception in late January, followed by the Region 11 event in mid-February. Region 3 hosted a breakfast in Rochester for its activists and legislators in mid-March. Two days later, Region 8 activists had a chance to talk to many lawmakers at the region’s reception in Albany. And Region 1 slated its legislative breakfast for March 19.

Many PEF activists will travel back to Albany in mid-April to attend the 18th Annual Somos el Futuro Legislative Conference held by the Legislature’s Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force.
If all of these encounters with legislators sound like overkill, think again.

SENDING A MESSAGE — Assembly Member Susan John (center) listens to PEF leaders, (L-R) Ron Goldstein, Scott Ray, Joyce Degenhardt, Frank Besser and Don Kehoskie on PEF Lobby Day in Albany. Photo by John Epting

“State leaders hear from many competing interest groups every day — all wanting a bigger share of the state revenues spent on their issues. We’ve learned that we have to keep repeating our message to the legislators and the governor if we want them to remember it when push finally comes to shove in the state budget process,” said PEF Vice President Ken Brynien, who chairs the union’s Political Action Committee. 

HONORED — PEF Region 11 Coordinator Jemma Marie-Hanson presents a medallion to Sen. Frank Padavan at a legislative reception in NYC in February as PEF President Roger Benson watches. Photo by John Epting

HELPING PEF — State Assembly Members Jonathan Bing (right) and Michael Benjamin (below) are thanked by PEF for helping to save Fulton C.F. Photos by Ken Dischel