Increase CHIPS funding and keep our roads and bridges safe
A Weekly COLUMN by NY State Senator Tom O’Mara,
Approaching final negotiations over a new state budget, it’s critical to begin stressing that this year’s budget must address the right priorities – and one of the top priorities, in my view, is the future of our local roads and bridges.
It’s a priority that I and local Assemblyman Phil Palmesano, together with many of our Senate and Assembly colleagues regionally and statewide, have long worked to strengthen. Since 2013, in fact, we have stood together with New York’s county and town highway superintendents and workers, and many other local leaders, to do everything we can to raise awareness and call for legislative support.
This year we are once again fully behind the annual advocacy campaign known as “Local Roads Are Essential.” The effort is sponsored by the New York State Association of County Highway Superintendents (NYSCHSA) and the New York State Association of Town Superintendents of Highways, Inc. (NYSAOTSOH).
In our view, Governor Kathy Hochul has failed to recognize the urgency and make necessary investments in local roads, bridges, and culverts a priority in her proposed 2025-26 state budget. The governor’s proposal to keep funding for the Consolidated Local Street and Highway Improvement Program (CHIPS), the state’s primary source of funding for local roads and bridges, flat at last year’s level is particularly troubling.
First, the governor fails to recognize the enormous impact inflation is having on the costs of construction materials and, consequently, on the budgets of local highway departments. Nationally, according to the Federal Highway Administration’s Highway Construction Cost Index, highway construction costs over the past three years have increased by 70 percent! From a long-term perspective, Governor Hochul fails to address the need. The latest study found that municipalities would need an additional $40.35 billion over 15 years to restore locally owned roads through repaving and improvements, or $2.69 billion annually.
In a February 13, 2025 letter to Governor Hochul and the Democrat leaders of the Senate and Assembly, we wrote, in part, “We once again stress that New York State’s direct investment in local roads and bridges through CHIPS remains fundamental. It deserves priority consideration in the final allocation of state infrastructure investment in the budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year…Local governments, for the foreseeable future, will continue to struggle to address budgetary demands in the face of the state-imposed property tax cap, rising pension, health care and highway construction costs, and unfunded state mandates, among other burdens… A stronger state-local partnership is the only solution to meeting the critical investment level needed to maintain and improve local roads, bridges, and culverts… Through the renewed, vigorous, long-term state investment we have outlined, we will finally move toward the safe and reliable local infrastructure we envision, an infrastructure that will serve as the catalyst for future community and economic development, job creation, and overall public and motorist safety.”
Consequently, local roads advocates are calling on Hochul and legislative leaders to:
> increase the CHIPS base level funding by $250 million to a total of $848 million;
> consolidate five of the state’s local road assistance programs into two programs which would reduce the administrative burden and recordkeeping costs at the state and local levels; and
> increase the CHIPS bidding threshold from $350,000 to $1,000,000 — or eliminate the threshold all together – to give municipalities more flexibility to pursue the most cost-effective option to bid out or perform in-house projects.
Additionally, we are raising an increasing concern over a state mandate scheduled to take effect in 2027 requiring local school districts to begin moving toward all-electric school bus fleets. Because electric school buses are heavier, we are seeing alarming studies estimating that a town’s cost for pavement maintenance would increase from a range of $20,000 to $50,000 per mile to about $550,000 per mile for reconstruction. Further, New York’s towns could see at least a ten-fold increase in the cost of maintaining their roads from this mandate.
We spelled it all out at a news conference late last week at the Big Flats Town Highway Garage, where local leaders and representatives of regional highway departments joined us. This week in Albany, local roads advocates from every region of the state will be at the State Capitol – wearing their trademark orange “Local Roads Are Essential” t-shirts – to rally support and we look forward to joining them.
In recent testimony before the Legislature’s fiscal committees, Town of Elmira Highway Superintendent Matt Mustico, who also currently serves as the President of the state Association of Town Highway Superintendents, stated, “ Every time there is a weather event, major snow accumulation, freezing temperatures or severe flooding — the hardworking people on our local crews ensure New York’s drivers get to and from work, homes, schools, hospitals and other destinations safely…As public officials ourselves, we understand the difficulty in trying to meet all of our constituent’s needs with limited resources. We must work together so that all state and local critical infrastructure needs are addressed. Our economy, workers and the traveling public are depending on us.”
Our bottom line: The “Local Roads Are Essential” coalition has worked long and hard for over a decade to strengthen New York State’s commitment to local transportation infrastructure. Now is no time for this state to begin turning its back.
