​New York State Fund Our Future is a coalition of union and community leaders committed to making the case for reshaping state government to meet the needs of New Yorkers. From potholes on the roads we drive, to the lack of mental health services for loved ones when they’re needed most, to feeling unsafe in public spaces, New Yorkers suffer daily from diminishing services despite paying more every year in taxes.

Decades of bad policies in Albany gutted the state workforce and reduced the public services available in New York. The pandemic laid bare the critical importance of the state’s social safety net. Just look around you: Waiting lists to get any sort of healthcare services for your loved ones, people with disabilities displaced because there aren’t enough state employees to care for them, violence on the subway and elsewhere in public, to name just a few. We know that New Yorkers can’t thrive without services like unemployment assistance, health insurance, mental health care and services for people with developmental disabilities, and safe and reliable public transportation.

We demand the following on behalf of New Yorkers who benefit from the public services PEF members provide every day:​

Use Tax Dollars for the Public Good​
• End the wasteful practice of paying thousands of contractors to perform routine work that can be performed by public employees for half the cost.
• Conduct cost-benefit analyses on all public projects to determine whether the work can be more efficiently and economically performed by state agencies before requesting proposals from contractors.
• Ensure that all publicly funded projects are overseen by state engineers, inspectors, and auditors.

Improve Staffing and Essential Health Care for the Most Vulnerable New Yorkers​
• Stop merging and closing in-patient beds in state mental health facilities and cease closing group homes operated the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD).
• Rebuild public services in New York State and ensure adequate staffing so all New Yorkers can efficiently and effectively receive the healthcare and other services they require.

Reinvigorate the Civil Service system to ensure highly-skilled workers are hired and promoted to fill thousands of vacancies
• Develop a merit system that will reduce the use of private contractors
• Stop paying $1 billion annually in outside service contracts. State workers can do it better and for less and we answer to you, not the governor.
• Offer more frequent Civil Service exams to attract skilled New Yorkers to fill the more than 7,000 vacant professional positions that are causing problems like nursing shortages, fewer safety inspections and long waits for unemployment claims.
• Improve pay equity for public healthcare professionals across state agencies by increasing the starting salary grades for nurses in state facilities and by expanding tuition assistance and loan forgiveness programs to facilitate the ability of New Yorkers to enter the nursing profession.