The Honorable Kathy Hochul
Governor of New York State
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224

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Dear Governor Hochul,

CEO Action for Racial Equity (CEOARE) is a Fellowship of over 100 companies that mobilizes a community of business leaders with diverse expertise across multiple industries and geographies to advance public policy in four key areas — healthcare, education, economic empowerment and public safety. Our mission is to identify, develop and promote scalable and sustainable public policies and corporate engagement strategies that will address systemic racism, social injustice and improve societal well-being.

The Fellowship mobilizes the larger collective business community – across all industries and regions – to facilitate change at the local, state and federal level. CEOARE is driving policy change across eight issues that disproportionately and systemically impact Black Americans – from cities to rural communities, offices to classrooms, and healthcare networks to criminal justice systems comprising of:

• A Path Toward Greater Food Equity
• Advancing a National Police Misconduct Registry
• Closing the Digital Divide
• Declaring Racism a Public Health Crisis
• Decriminalizing Poverty by ending policies where the lack of wealth causes unintended consequences
• Equity in Early Childhood Education
• Expanding Economic Opportunity Through Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs)
• Supporting Steps Towards Permanent Expansion of Equitable Telehealth Coverage

CEOARE is also advancing corporate engagement with our 100+ signatories, as well as 2,000+ CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion organizations across three social contracts:

• Advancing Corporate and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Collaboration: Expanding Reach and Sustaining Engagement
• Expanding Beyond Supplier Diversity to a Business Diversity Ecosystem
• Mobilizing Untapped Talent: Destigmatizing Reentry through Support for Fair Chance Hiring

CEOARE applauds your bold vision to help advance equity for members of the Black community in New York. We commend your blueprint shared in the State of the State Address to support fair chance hiring, eliminate supervision fees, close the digital divide, increase affordable childcare and create a path to equity with the goal of protecting the safety, health and economic opportunities for all New Yorkers. Your commitments are a welcome first step at improving the well-being of Black Americans in New York, and we strongly endorse several initiatives that firmly align with the CEOARE Issue Agenda including declaring that racism is a public health crisis, the Jails to Job Program, ConnectAll Initiative, Equity Agenda, Healthcare Plan, Affordable Childcare Plan, and creating an Advisory Council to support CDFIs and other financial institutions that lend to communities of color.

While this new vision for New York State is encouraging, we invite you to view this plan as a mile-marker, not the end of the policy road. CEOARE believes there are additional executive and legislative actions that the Governor and New York State Legislature should take this year to advance racial equity. One example is expanding the list of court fees to be eliminated by passing the End Predatory Fees Act. We believe these fees should be eliminated for the same reasons that you are proposing eliminating supervision fees – they have low collection rates and disproportionally impact those who are already struggling financially. We welcome the opportunity to educate and bring awareness about other key reforms to improve the quality of life for Black Americans living in New York.

We encourage your leadership team to continue to work together with the legislature to apply a racial equity lens to enact meaningful, bipartisan reforms that will promote accountability and transparency in policing, fairness in the criminal justice system and equity in healthcare and digital access.

We applaud your call for a new era in New York and welcome opportunities to work together on transformational change. CEOARE looks forward to working with you and the New York legislature to advance reforms to increase equity for the approximately three million Black Americans in New York.

Thank you for your leadership and commitment to driving this important work forward

Sincerely,
CEO Action for Racial Equity