Kathleen Boland was among the hundreds of people with disabilities who traveled to Albany from around New York on Monday to push state lawmakers and Gov. Kathy Hochul to back a higher pay raise for workers who provide services to those with developmental and intellectual disabilities. 

"That's not fair to pay them the minimum wage," she said. "They work too hard to just deserve that." 

Programs that provide services for some of New York's most vulnerable people are struggling with retaining workers. They want a pay raise from Albany, and one bigger than what's on the table in the state budget talks. 

Hochul's $227 billion budget includes a 2.5% pay raise for workers at non-profit programs for people with disabilities. Advocates are seeking a raise of a least 8.5% for the workers. 

Erik Geizer, the CEO of Arc New York, believes that raise won't help the organizations attract or keep workers in the non-profit sector as workers elsewhere are seeing higher wages. 

"We're not able to recruit enough workers and when we do get workers, we're not able to keep them," he said. "This budget only exacerbates the problem." 

The workforce for non-profit intellectual and developmental disabilities providers in New York has struggled with vacancies for shortages for years, and the disruptions from the pandemic has only compounded the problem since 2020. 

The issue is one that cuts across party lines. Republican state Sen. Jim Tedisco backs the push for a higher pay raise in order to keep the non-profit programs competitive with other jobs.  

"They have families too," Tedisco said. "Those workers are trained to take care of these people, they love to take care of these people, but they haven't gotten an increase like other workers have had."

Democratic state Sen. John Mannion points to the financial struggles facing non-profit organizations as programs have face cuts and made smaller. 

"This is highly disruptive and really leads to a lack of dignity, a lack of enrichment and we've got to do better and we're going to," Mannion said. 

Mannion, the top lawmaker on the Senate Disabilities Committee, is hopeful the higher pay raise can be included in a final budget agreement next month. 

"It has to -- 2.5% is a starting point," Mannion said. "It's not an ending point."