When lawmakers passed the Child Victims Act in January the financial impact of the bill was left to be determined.

Even as hundreds of plaintiffs filed lawsuits this week under the new law, that impact still isn't totally clear.

"We still don't know how many people are going to come forward and they have a whole year to come forward before we figure out what the total number would be," SUNY economist Fred Floss said.

The obvious impact would seem to be the cost to the court system taking on a heavy new case load. However, Floss believes it won't necessarily be a major expense.

"The court may very well take some time to make sure that everybody is treated fairly and again it’s going to be how the court decides to take on these cases," he said.

But there are other potential costs that should be considered as well.

"Sometimes there's a price on justice and I think bringing justice to these victims is the thing we should think about the most and that's the most important thing and if there's a cost to the school districts and the state or whoever was responsible for these terrible acts against young people, that's just a price of justice," Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, D, said.

A number of school districts have already been named in lawsuits.

"The school districts that are involved in these cases are going to have to get the money from somewhere and that would presumably one way or another be tax money," Floss said.

And he said that could be difficult for some districts to obtain as it may mean they need to ask for voters to approve a property tax hike and in some cases exceed the state mandated tax cap.

"It's going to be a very difficult time and we're going to have to think about, again, how do we treat all the different groups here fairly because we don't want to take the money away from students so they don't get a good education," he said.

The economists said he could see those costs fall to the state. He also pointed out if organizations that provide crucial services are decimated by lawsuits, the government may need to take action too.

"You could see the state having to put additional funds in to make sure that the programs are being run continue on," Floss said.

As the process continues, Floss believes legislators may have to look at creating new sources of funding to address some of the consequences of the law.