Back in October, Governor Hochul vetoed a bill with unanimous support that would have allowed special education providers to keep federal PPP loan money.
The state Legislature unanimously passed a bill through both houses earlier this year that allowed pre-school special education providers to keep at least a portion of the PPP money they didn’t use, but Hochul vetoed the bill Monday night.
This bill would have allowed pre-school special education providers to keep 1% of the revenue per year over the next four years and up to 4% total.
Hochul vetoes bill that would've let special education providers keep leftover PPP funds
Yet, the governor's justification for this was that the school would not be required to pay that money back anyway.
Gov. Hochul’s office defended the veto, saying that these schools will not be required to pay any of the PPP money back and these providers are already allowed to keep a 1% surplus through the administrative rate-setting process.
Hochul’s office also argues that future funding rates would then be based off an inflated number when the 1% extra funding is added in.
Simply put, this doesn't make sense to me. If the schools already do not have to pay back the money, what is the purpose of this bill? And how does it inflate future funding rates?