By Jiaqi Huang SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) —A new law will provide New York State businesses with tax breaks if they hire people who are recovering from substance use disorders. In the recently approved state budget, Governor Cuomo agreed to allocate up to $2 million annually for the tax credits. Starting in 2020, New York State employers will get a tax credit of $2,000 for hiring each qualified employee.
The State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services is still finalizing the criteria of application for tax credits. Rob Kent, the general counsel from OASAS, said New York is the first state to ameliorate the employment for people with drug abuse problems. “We will look forward to eligible employees, and this is written in the law that they have a commitment to recovery, to support people and have connections to the local recovery community organizations in their area,” he said.
Wil Murtaugh, the executive director of Syracuse ACR Health, said there is a stigma attached to people who use needles and injection drugs, and the connection makes it difficult for people to get hired. “In our syringe exchange program, we have over 4,500 people signed up for syringes, that’s a lot of people,” he said. So eventually those people will need and want to go to recovery and medication-assisted therapy.”
Kent said putting this tax credit forward will help bring these people back. He said an OASAS-certified local recovery center will work with recovering drug abusers to be qualified. “In the middle of the opioid epidemic, this is one more piece to support people who reach complete treatment, reach a point to recovery, to be able to find jobs, to do the same things everyone else does,” he said.
Kent said they try to spread the benefit around the state with spending all the $2 million tax credits. “Businesses wouldn’t get another tax credit for the same individual the following year, but they can hire other individuals in recovering to get another tax credit for the new employees,” he said.
