ALBANY \u2013 New York is sitting on nearly $18 million in taxpayer cash meant for charities, including crucial donations meant for firefighters, veterans, food banks and cancer research, according to a shocking new state comptroller report.<\/p>\n
The study released Friday reveals how Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s bureaucracy has failed to distributed millions of dollars in \u201ccheckoffs\u201d \u2014 charitable contribution that New Yorkers can opt to make while filling out their tax returns \u2014 with a chunk of the funds sitting idle for years.<\/p>\n
Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s administration is sitting on millions of dollars in unspent donations designated for various charitable causes by New Yorkers on their tax returns. Brigitte Stelzer for NY Post<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is unacceptable this money is unspent,\u201d State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli fumed in a statement. \u201cThe agencies responsible for managing these funds must ensure contributions are put to good use.\u201d <\/p>\n
The report found that some $2.3 million has remained untouched in the Volunteer Firefighting and Emergency Services Recruitment and Retention fund since 2023. Of that, roughly $300,000 in donations came from 2025 tax returns.<\/p>\n
In another egregious example, the $1.1 million in the \u201cGifts for Food Banks\u201d fund gathered cobwebs \u2014 having been completely untouched since 2024 \u2014 even as Hochul declared a state of emergency over food insecurity during the federal government shutdown last year.<\/p>\n
Of the state\u2019s top 10 charity funds with the highest balances at the end of the fiscal year ending in June, no disbursements had been made from seven of them in the 2026 fiscal year, the report said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are donations \u2026 coming out of New Yorkers\u2019 pockets at a time when economic realities are harsh, but they\u2019re still giving generously,\u201d noted state Sen. Jake Ashby (R-43rd District).<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s despicable that the state, the level of incompetence, would not allow these funds to go where they needed it to.\u201d<\/p>\n
New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, left, said it\u2019s \u201cunacceptable\u201d the funds have not been disbursed. Also pictured are Control Board Member Bill Thompson, Hochul and State Comptroller Mark Levine. Andrew Schwartz \/ SplashNews.com<\/p>\n
Of the top 10 charity funds with the highest balances at the end of the fiscal year ending in June, no disbursements had been made from seven of them. AP Photo\/Ted Shaffrey<\/p>\n
Ashby, an Afghanistan war veteran whose district spans Rensselaer County and parts of Washington and Albany counties upstate, was one of several lawmakers who prodded the state to finally cough up $1.7 million in donations meant for homeless veteran services over the last two years.<\/p>\n
He was \u201cgrateful\u201d that the state heeded his previous calls, but said it was still insulting that the Hochul administration was not a better caretaker of New Yorkers\u2019 donations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s amazing that the citizens of this state, one of the highest tax states in the country, continue to give at the rate that they are on a tax form. And it\u2019s insulting that those in their respective departments or positions of oversight would overlook this,\u201d Ashby said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALBANY \u2013 New York is sitting on nearly $18 million in taxpayer cash meant for charities, including crucial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4241,10447,9174,195,426,57,9,24,55,54,56,2780,58,1979],"class_list":["post-332197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-albany","tag-comptroller","tag-ems","tag-firefighters","tag-kathy-hochul","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-taxes","tag-us-news","tag-veterans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}