Somers officials slam governor over CHIPS funding

SOMERS, N.Y. - Calling it “shortsighted” and a “step backward for New York state,” Somers Supervisor Robert Scorrano slammed Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision not to increase funding for the Consolidated Local Street and Highway Improvement Program (CHIPS).

Hochul unveiled her executive budget for fiscal year 2025-2026 on Tuesday, Jan. 21. 

In a press release, the governor highlighted Albany’s continued commitment to investing in “road, bridge, and safety improvements,” including $1.3 billion in the state’s capital plan to “repair local roads and bridges through the Consolidated (Local Street) and Highway Improvement Program (CHIPS), Pave Our Potholes (POP) initiative, and more.”

In FY 2024/2025, the entire CHIPS program was funded to the tune of $539.3 million. 

Somers’s share of CHIPS funding in 2024/2025 was $320,746.42, Scorrano said. That would remain flat if Hochul’s budget passes as is. 

There was also funding from the state’s Extreme Weather Recovery Program ($62,963.43), PAVE-NY ($75,327.47), and Pave Our Potholes ($50,218.31), according to the state Legislature’s last capital project budget. If that’s factored in, Somers received “roughly $509,255” in FY 2024/2025, Scorrano said.

Not increasing CHIPS funding “directly impacts local highway departments and the communities they serve,” he wrote to Hochul on Wednesday, Jan. 22. (As of December 2024, the U.S. inflation rate was 2.9 percent.)

The program was established in 1981 “to provide state funds to municipalities to support the construction and repair of highways, bridges, highway-railroad crossings, and other facilities that are not on the state highway system,” according to the state Department of Transportation (DOT).

In order to be eligible for CHIPS reimbursement, a capital project must be undertaken by a municipality for highway-related purposes and have a service life of 10 years or more with normal maintenance or compliance with certain exceptions.

As “the backbone of our state’s transportation infrastructure,” local highways are “vital to millions of New Yorkers’ safety, mobility, and economic stability, Scorrano said, adding that failing to increase funding “fails to recognize the growing needs of our towns” and “undermines our ability to provide safe and reliable transportation for our residents.”

Because of its location, Somers is a significant cut-through for two major highways: I-684 and the Taconic State Parkway.

This is causing extra stress on the six state roads (Routes 35, 100, 116, 118, 139, and 202) -- not to mention town roads -- inside its borders.

The town salts and plows some of the state’s main roads.

The rising costs of materials, fuel, and labor have placed “an unprecedented strain on local highway departments,” which Scorrano noted are “already working with limited budgets.”

“Freezing CHIPS funding at current levels is not just a financial decision; it is a decision that jeopardizes public safety, economic development, and the quality of life for New Yorkers in every corner of the state,” he wrote.

Scorrano also grabbed the chance to critique other things he thought were contributing to “the burden felt by hardworking taxpayers.”

Besides the lack of an increase for infrastructure, he called out “the effects of congestion pricing in New York City” and the Hochul administration’s “aggressive green energy mandates.”

“These combined policies make it increasingly difficult for middle-class families and small businesses to thrive under the mounting financial strain,” he asserted, adding that New Yorkers currently pay $8.9 billion each year to repair damage to their vehicles caused by “poorly maintained roads.”

Local highway departments are tasked with maintaining and plowing roads and ensuring bridges are structurally sound and infrastructure is “resilient” when there are “extreme weather events.”

“Without adequate support from the state, these critical services risk being compromised,” Scorrano said.
Urging Hochul to reconsider the level of CHIPS funding, Scorrano declared: “Our residents deserve better and our towns cannot afford to bear the burden of deteriorating infrastructure alone.”

Copies of the letter were sent to state Sen. Pete Harckham (D-40th District), state Assemblyman Matt Slater (R-94th District), Matt Mustico, president of the New York State Association of Town Superintendents of Highways (NYSAOTSOH); James Dussing, NYSAOTSOH’s first vice president; and Nicholas DeVito, Somers’s highway superintendent.

‘Roads Don’t Play Politics’ 

DeVito weighed in as well.

Pointing out that CHIPS funding “has remained flat since the last increase in 2022,” the town’s highway superintendent said road maintenance costs “have skyrocketed,” he said, adding: “Much like most taxpayers’ grocery bills, highway department groceries have felt the crunch of inflation.”

Highway departments are also contending with changes in state regulations.

According to DeVito, “green initiatives, like using recycled asphalt, have hamstrung municipalities.”

“Green” asphalt “costs more money to make and lasts half as long,” meaning that any road the town paves now has a lifespan of 10 to 12 years as opposed to 18 to 20 years.

New York also recently adopted California’s “Advanced Clean Truck Act,” which requires truck dealers to “sell one electric vehicle per class in order to receive six credits to sell gas combustion engines,” he said.

This may work for a sedan or SUV class of vehicle, but a viable version doesn’t exist for the class of vehicles highway departments use, said DeVito pointing to the added “burden” of having to install EV charging stations.

Somers’ has a fleet of 50 plus vehicles and the cost would be enormous, likely in “the tens of millions of dollars.”

“This doesn’t even touch the downstream costs of electricity and the fact that our electrical grid is nearly maxed out currently and cannot handle this influx,” he said.

Insisting that the town wasn’t against “going green,” DeVito said: “If you give us a viable electric truck, we will gladly use it. If you give us a ‘green’ asphalt product that holds up, we will happily install it. Until then New York, at least help us pay for what you are mandating.”

Last budget season, Hochul “had actually cut CHIPS funding,” DeVito said. Highway officials fought back and the money was restored in the “One House” budget.

Locally, DeVito credited that success to the support of Slater, Scorrano, and the Town Board.

He planned to join other highway superintendents in Albany in early March for their 2025 Advocacy Day, titled “Local Roads are Essential.”

“It begs the question though: ‘Why do we need to continue to lobby for such a non-partisan issue?’,” DeVito asked, adding: “Local roads are used by all of our residents on a daily basis. They are the backbone of our local infrastructure and paramount to resident safety. Roads don’t play politics, nor should politics play roads.”

Hochul Responds 

Responding to the outcry, a Hochul spokesperson issued the following statement:

“Throughout her tenure, Gov. Hochul has made transformative investments in infrastructure projects across New York. In the coming months, the governor looks forward to working with the legislature to pass much-needed infrastructure funding, so the state can continue the work necessary to keep New Yorkers safe on our roads and bridges.”

After unveiling her $252 billion FY 2025-2026 executive budget, Hochul said it includes “investments to support New Yorkers – without raising income taxes.”

Pocketbook areas highlighted included affordability, housing, crime-fighting, economic growth, education, climate change, health care, and transportation.

Besides the $1.3 billion for CHIPS, Pave Our Potholes (POP), and other initiatives, the new plan included investments in road, bridge, and safety and commuting improvements:

$6.9 billion for the New York State Department of Transportation’s capital plan.

$3 billion in state funding to support the MTA’s proposed $68.4 billion 2025-2029 Capital Program.

$344 million for Upstate transit systems and $588 million for non-MTA Downstate transit systems.

$25 million for planning and design of improvements to Hudson Valley rail service, working to shave as much as 15 minutes of commute times for certain trips.

Superintendents ‘Shocked’ 

The NYSAOTSOH said last week that its members were “shocked” that Hochul’s FY 2025-2026 proposal “contained no new funding for town highway and bridges despite continued explosive growth in construction and supply costs.”

The organization pointed out that local highway departments maintain 87 percent of New York’s 97,000 miles of highways and more than half of the state’s 8,600 highway bridges. Just 13 percent of the state’s highways are maintained by the state DOT, it said.

It also noted that in her recent State of the State address, Hochul promised to “restore the purchasing power” of the DOT’s capital plan to “address rising construction costs.”

She followed through on that with “a large increase” for the DOT’s roads and bridges, but no hike for town highway departments, it said.

Mustico, Elmira’s highway superintendent, called that “stunning and deeply disappointing” considering that towns are “struggling to keep pace with the very same cost increases.”

His dismay was echoed by Dussing, the town of Clarence’s highway superintendent.

“The government needs to ensure public assets are properly maintained. This budget as proposed fails to meet that standard. We will ask our state Legislators to once again step in and provide the resources we need at the local level to guarantee that our highways and bridges are safe and well maintained,” he said.

Desperate Appeal 

In a Dec. 11, 2024, letter to Hochul, both NYSAOTSOH and the New York State County Highway Superintendents Association (NYSCHSA) called for an increase of $250 million in CHIPS funding.

“Alarmingly, the condition of our local systems is worsening for several reasons,” wrote Mustico and NYSCHSA president Jeffrey Smith, blaming the deterioration on “an unprecedented spike in inflation over the past few years.”

The rising costs of construction materials and labor have “significantly eroded” the DOT capital plan’s purchasing power, they said, estimating “that the equivalent of one whole year of funding for the local program under the plan has been lost to inflation.”

Smith and Mustico also claimed that many projects “originally programmed within our aid levels and local budgets will be deferred or canceled, further compromising the functionality and safety of our transportation system.”

Conditions of roads and bridges can only be expected to continue to decline, contributing to higher repair costs “down the road,” they added.

According to the organizations, 16.7 percent of local bridges were determined to be in fair or poor condition in 2023.

“$10 billion is calculated as being required to improve local bridges outside NYC for 2023; and $6.3 billion of that is needed just for counties that own most of the local bridges,” they wrote, adding that “local pavement conditions are suffering as well.”

They cited a 2024 report by TRIP, a nonprofit that researches transportation issues, that concluded that poor road and bridge conditions cost motorists $36.7 billion annually -- up to $3,697 per driver in some areas -- due to vehicle damage, crashes, and congestion.

New York’s “massive local highway system supports economic development, employment in the construction industries, local commercial sectors like agriculture and tourism, and important pathways to vital public services,” they reminded the governor.

According to Mustico and Smith, the “vast majority” of New York’s 1,600 municipalities receive no federal highway assistance.

This means that the bulk of federal aid is directed to the state system and larger projects of statewide “significance.”

Reducing public investment in local roads increases the burden on local taxpayers, impacts the cost of living, and threatens “the viability of home ownership particularly in the rural, lower-income areas of the state,” they asserted.

Copied on the letter were DOT Commissioner Marie Therese Dominguez; Blake G. Washington, director of the state’s Division of the Budget; Allison Bradley, assistant secretary for transportation; and Janet Ho, the DOT’s assistant commissioner for finance and integrated modal services.