Kevin Byrne

Kevin Byrne is an American public official serving as the 6th County Executive of Putnam County, NY and is a former state legislator of the New York State Assembly.

He is a registered Republican.

As Putnam County Executive, Byrne is both the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Budget Officer of Putnam County government.

He serves as a national executive board member of the American City County Exchange, board member of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, board member of the East of Hudson Watershed Corporation, and is a member of the County Executives of America, New York State Association of Counties, and New York State County Executives Association.

In 2024, Byrne was also named to Run Gen Z 's Rising Stars Club where he serves as a mentor for younger Generation Z officials and candidates, supporting a new generation of leaders across America.

During his tenure in the Assembly, Byrne served as the ranking member on the Assembly Health Committee, chairperson of the Assembly Minority Conference Program Committee, co-chair of the Assembly Minority Conference Task Force on Critical Infrastructure and Transportation, ranking member of the Assembly Aging Committee, and vice chair of minority steering.

Byrne also served on the Assembly Ways & Means, Governmental Operations, Insurance, Labor, and Transportation Committees.

Following his graduation from the University of Scranton in 2007, Byrne returned to the Hudson Valley where he worked for several years in emergency services at Westchester EMS.

Simultaneously, he served as a member of the Putnam Valley Planning Board and as a Firefighter/EMT with the Kent Volunteer Fire Department where he served three terms as the department's president.

He later served as Deputy District Director to Congresswoman Nan Hayworth and then as a Regional Director for the American Heart Association while finishing his M.P.A. concentrating in Healthcare Administration at Marist College.

Prior to running for public office, he also worked in healthcare administration assisting the Senior Director of Clinical Operations at CareMount Medical, which at the time was the largest private multi-specialty medical group in New York state.

Byrne won his first bid seeking elected office in 2016 when he was elected as the Assemblyman for New York's 94th Assembly District.

Byrne lives in Mahopac with his wife Briana and their young son Braeden.

Byrne has served as Putnam County Executive since January 1, 2023.

As County Executive, Byrne introduced a variety of new initiatives to enhance transparency and accessibility, centralize services, prioritize spending, and implement new guardrails to control government spending and taxation.

In his first year as County Executive, Byrne reduced the overall tax burden in the budget for the first time in 25 years.

He enacted a property tax cut that lowered the tax rate to its lowest level in 15 years, and lowered sales tax to make it fairer and less regressive, all with no new borrowing.

That’s in addition to other initiatives such as:

In his first State of the County, Byrne proposed local legislation to codify a Taxpayer Transparency Act and a Taxpayer Bill of Rights.

To date, neither have been acted on by the Legislature.

In 2023 as the migrant crisis continued to overwhelm municipalities across America, amplified by the expiration of Title 42, Byrne responded directly to the City of New York’s migrant placement program which sought to offload its homeless population into neighboring counties with little to no planning or communication.

Byrne prevented the City from abandoning its transient homeless population in the county without first obtaining a shared services agreement with Putnam County.

New York City sued both Putnam County and Byrne, but the suit was dismissed in its entirety by a New York City judge in New York State Supreme Court.

Byrne served in the Assembly for three terms, from 2017 till the end of 2022.

During his first term in the Assembly, Byrne voted against every tax increase proposed in the Assembly.

This is a primary reason why Byrne was recognized in 2017 as one of five state legislators with the highest rating by the Conservative Party of New York State.

From 2018 to 2022, Byrne served as the New York State chair of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Byrne was born and raised in the Hudson Valley and attended Carmel High School before enrolling at the University of Scranton.

As a high school student, he earned the rank of Eagle Scout.

At Scranton, Byrne completed the academic portion of the Army ROTC program supported by an internship with then Congresswoman Sue Kelly.

However, was ultimately unable to qualify and serve in the Army due to two previous spinal surgeries.

In 2019 Byrne was honored with the "Defender of Life" Award by the Westchester-Putnam Right to Life Committee.

In 2020 he received the "Guardian of Small Business" Award from the NFIB, in addition to being named as one of GOPAC's 2020 emerging leaders.

During his first term, Byrne introduced and passed ten bills in the Assembly, eight of which passed the Senate and were signed into law by the governor, more than most other freshmen members during that time.

During his three terms in the Legislature, Byrne introduced and passed over twenty bills that have been signed into law by either Governor Andrew Cuomo or Governor Kathy Hochul.

Some brief examples of Byrne's legislation in the Assembly included:

Some other examples of legislation co-sponsored by Byrne that became law include:

In January 2020, as a member of the state Assembly, Byrne was appointed Ranking Minority Member of the Assembly Health Committee by Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay.

Less than three months later, New York State had its first confirmed positive case of COVID-19, and New York's health system was tested in an unprecedented manner.

As numerous scandals unraveled around Andrew Cuomo's administration, Byrne was a loud vocal critic.