ALBANY — As part of an effort to retain health care workers, state officials on Wednesday said bonuses of up to $3,000 for eligible employees are set to be issued to them.

The state budget approved this year includes $1.3 billion to fund the Health Care and Mental Hygiene Worker Bonus program for what state officials call “front line” health care staffers.

The workers covered by the program, according to the legislation, include health care and mental hygiene practitioners, technicians, assistants and aides providing services to individuals in their care.

To get the bonus, the workers’ base salary can’t exceed $125,000 annually. Full-time, part-time and temporary employees are eligible, as are independent contractors.

Covered workers are defined as “certain front line health care and mental hygiene practitioners, technicians, assistants and aides that provide hands on health or care services to individuals” receiving an annualized base salary (excluding any bonuses or overtime pay) of $125,000 or less, and include full-time, part-time, and temporary employees as well as independent contractors.

In announcing the opening of the program, Gov. Kathy Hochul said: “Health care workers are the foundation of our medical system, and we need to acknowledge the sacrifices they have made to bring us through these challenging times.”

The precise sum workers collect will hinge on how much time they worked during a designated period during the healthcare crisis spawned by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The state is also initiating a new scholarship program aimed at wooing nurses to practice their profession in the state after they receive training. The program requires recipients of the scholarships to commit to working in New York for at least two years.

Hochul, a Democrat running to keep her job in this year’s election, noted the state now has some 9,300 vacancies for nurses.

Her opponent, Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-Long Island, said the healthcare staffing shortage was exacerbated by Hochul’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for health workers.

Zeldin estimated that 34,000 health care workers lost their jobs due to the mandate.

“There already was a big worker shortage that she then purposefully made far worse,” Zeldin said. “Hochul’s ability to create new messes is far greater than her ability to clean them up.”

But the bonus program was cheered by a key political ally of New York Democrats, the labor union 1199 SEIU United Health Care Workers.

“It takes a special kind of person to become a caregiver, and to serve our communities during the greatest public health crisis in a generation — often at great personal risk — deserves our utmost respect,” said George Gresham, a union leader.

The announcement triggered grumbling over the fact that some workers employed within the intellectual and developmental disabilities sector were not included in the job titles that are eligible for the bonuses. But workers with those same job titles at hospitals and nursing homes will get the bonuses.

Tom McAlvanah, president of New York Disability Advocates, said he was “deeply dismayed” that many workers in the sector he represents won’t benefit from the program if the state continues to have “two sets of rules for workers in these sectors.”

Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, who often advocates for programs serving New Yorkers with disabilities, said of the state: “They have consistently treated those providing necessary care to those with disabilities as second class.”

As for the nursing home sector, Stephen Hanse, president of the New York Health Facilities Association, told CNHI the bonuses will be “essential to retain the men and women who have worked through the pandemic on the front line. This is a welcome initiative that will help bolster New York’s health care workforce.”

State officials have created an online portal at nysworkerbonus.com, through which employees may file their applications for the bonuses.