Hochul touts Long Island investments at breakfast; says Nassau must 'step up' in managing NUMC

Ahead of her State of the State address on Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul reflected on Long Island's investments toward transportation, public safety, housing and jobs, nodding to “big plans” in her capital plan to invest more into the Long Island Rail Road for improving tracks and station electrification.

“The businesses and the educational institutions and our whole corridor — our life sciences corridor — are really blossoming … and just moving so quickly in the future, because the Long Island Rail Road is the link to all of it,” Hochul said. 

Speaking to an audience of business leaders in Nassau and Suffolk counties, both of which voted for Hochul’s Republican challenger Lee Zeldin in the 2022 gubernatorial election, Hochul touted housing projects like the $1.2 billion Station Yards development in Ronkonkoma. When the project’s second phase is completed next year, the site is expected to have 1,400 units of housing, Hochul said.

“We’re not talking about low-income housing, we’re not talking about high rises in your neighborhood … We’re talking about what fits for your community: Housing that’s affordable for the people who live there,” she said. 

Hochul closed her remarks by celebrating the Island’s economic development, citing roughly 53,000 new jobs since she took office and about 47,000 new businesses in 2023.

Hochul came to Long Island via the LIRR, where she greeted commuters on the platform at Jamaica before boarding the reverse-commute train from the city to the suburbs, which was about half-full of passengers.

"This is a world class experience and more people need to take it," Hochul said in an interview with Newsday later on the train.

Asked about the affordability of the extra newly enacted $9 congestion pricing toll into Manhattan, Hochul said about 75% of Long Island commuters who travel into the central business district take public transportation.

"People on this train know that this is the easiest way to get in from Long Island," Hochul said on the 8:27 a.m. train to Huntington. "So what this does is it generates the revenues necessary for us to make $1.5 billion more in investment in this railroad to make sure that the vast, vast majority of people choose this method coming into the city have a station world class experience." 

Hochul also weighed in on one of the Island’s beleaguered facilities, the Nassau University Medical Center. Asked by Newsday about the possibility of the state taking over NUMC, she said Nassau County and hospital officials need to “step up.”

“I would not like [a takeover] to be the option, but we need to have them to make the tough decisions,” Hochul told Newsday.

“The county knows what they need to do. We’ve asked them and we’ve worked collaboratively with them, and they and the hospital need to step up,” she added.

Richard Kessel, chairman of the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, echoed Hochul’s stance, saying the oversight board is “working very closely with the governor and her staff on coming up with solutions for the medical center to survive and thrive.”

“I fully support her insistence that the county needs to work with us if we’re going to get things done over at the hospital … We have presented a number of proposals to the county executive and his people and we’re waiting to hear back from them,” he said. 

Hospital and county officials have been sparring with state health leaders and the county’s financial watchdog group for months over the short- and long-term future of NUMC, which has been in dire financial straits for years.

An audit of NUMC last year found the hospital ran a deficit of $142 million in 2023. Financial watchdog officials said NUMC owed $350 million in back payments to the New York State Health Insurance Program as of last summer, putting its employees’ health coverage at risk. 

The governor began talks with Nassau County about a takeover last summer. Most recently, hospital officials angered New York State by approving a new permanent CEO, Meg Ryan. State Health Commissioner Dr. James V. McDonald penned a letter to the NUMC board chairman two hours before the hospital board meeting last month where Ryan was approved demanding he “immediately halt” the move. Ignoring McDonald’s warning put the hospital’s state rescue funds at risk, he said.

“Governor Hochul would surely benefit from learning the facts about NUMC’s remarkable progress over the past year, despite the attacks from her administration and NIFA,” Ryan said in a statement to Newsday, adding that the hospital increased its patient load over the last year.

“Rather than hoping to pull an unprecedented power play, we hope the Governor will … put our patients over politics,” she said.

In December, NUMC filed suit against the state to recoup millions of dollars it claims the state owes the hospital. Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman told Newsday in a statement Friday that the alleged practice became a missed opportunity to "improve healthcare services for Long Island's most vulnerable."

With John Asbury

Correction: The article has been updated to reflect NUMC filed suit against the State of New York after initially filing a notice of claim.