We pride ourselves on our ability to develop creative solutions to address our clients’ concerns and offer a full range of services, including analyzing and drafting legislation, monitoring committee activity and the introduction of all new legislative and regulatory proposals, advocating before government leaders and staff, attending hearings, providing relevant research and formulating strategic plans to help our clients achieve their goals.
Government functions to serve people, communities, organizations and corporations—laws are passed, rules and regulations are implemented and problems are solved. The Roffe Group of Robinson+Cole knows that its clients and their projects are affected by the actions of executive agencies and public authorities. Our lobbyists have a wide range of knowledge, experience and understanding of all functions of these agencies and authorities and can provide guidance, representation and support to a variety of sectors, communities and industries.
The Roffe Group of Robinson+Cole is unique among government relations firms in that its staff has extraordinary budget and fiscal expertise. Staff spent years analyzing, drafting, negotiating and implementing the New York State budget, from the appropriation of funds to the contractual approvals that make those dollars flow to recipients, as well as how revenue proposals are altered and replaced in the financial plan.
Budget issues often dominate government relations work. It is never more prevalent than in tough financial times when greater vigilance is necessary to ward off additional costs of doing business or to combat possible reductions to important funding support. Whether it is an individual case or forming coalitions and strategies to achieve broader industry group successes, we are particularly well positioned to promote our clients’ interests.
We have had budget success, inside of government and out. We have been at the negotiating table on billion dollar transactions and have vast experience with building the case for new initiatives and keeping important programs in the base, for winning legislative grants and fostering public-private partnerships, as well as with complex bond financing and long-term capital planning. We have worked on budgets from formulation at the agency level and with the Division of the Budget, through the Legislative process, to implementation with those same agencies and the Comptroller. We have worked on econometric models, revenue forecasting and dedicated funding. Across the state, there is always budget activity in other settings, especially given the differing fiscal years. In that regard, we have been at the table with local government and vast public authorities, understand the interplay of Federal funding, and focus on the budget formulation and adoption process of each.
In the procurement lobbying area, we give our clients a competitive advantage in their respective business areas by working with them to help cultivate a strategic plan to secure government contracts, advising them through bid development and submission of formal responses to requests for proposals and qualifications (RFP’s and RFQ’s). As importantly, we advise our clients on any and all changes in the law as it affects the procurement process in New York State and the propriety of their lobbying efforts.
We have assisted our clients in achieving success on a full range of issues including but not limited to business, health care, energy, insurance, banking and finance, social services, economic development, education, tax, environment, transportation and gaming.
To keep current with developments in the ever changing legislative and regulatory arenas, we offer our clients a direct line of communication to monitor the effectiveness of their legislative and regulatory agendas. This often requires immediate communication and turnaround. To that end, we have equipped our offices with state of the art technology, including a computerized bill tracking systems with direct access to the New York State Bill Drafting Commission. We are always just a phone call or e-mail away at any time.