A bill to make early childcare free for all New Yorkers will be introduced by members of the City Council on Thursday. This will significantly extend the city’s preschool programs, which Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has expressed uncertainty about continuing.
Jennifer Gutiérrez, a council member for Brooklyn, does not yet have a cost estimate for the proposed law. All New York City children from 6 weeks to 5 years old would get free childcare under the proposed legislation. After the law is introduced, she promised to demand a cost study. According to Nathaniel Styer, a spokesman for the education department, the city’s current early childhood education initiatives are expected to cost more than $1 billion this year.
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Gutiérrez noted, “It’s an investment in our economy. It’s an investment in our community, in our city.” She added, “all we’re saying is to make it easier for families, when they have a child, that they know where those daycares are, they know that they’re going to be able to afford it, that they’re going to have a guaranteed slot.”
The law would mandate the city’s education department to boost the number of slots in programs that provide free childcare for the youngest students. The 3-K program, which offers care to children aged three, was put on hold by the Adams administration last year because of the poor handling of the initiative by the previous government led by former Mayor Bill de Blasio.
When the measure is passed, all city children, including those without legal status, must have access to free daycare.
A City Hall spokesperson stated, “We are grateful for federal stimulus dollars that allowed us to invest in critical programs as our city emerged from the pandemic, but we will need an all-hands-on-deck approach to overcome looming fiscal challenges. We will continue to protect core services and work to strengthen the city’s social safety net while working with our state and federal partners to provide long-term fiscally sustainable solutions that are in the best interest of New York’s families.” Then added, “We will review the legislation when it’s introduced.”
https://b933dbed3b54f6bac6f17ae6a8cef731.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html The de Blasio administration’s flagship program was free pre-K, which he later extended to include 3-K in 2018. Nevertheless, it is unclear from the Adams administration if it would implement de Blasio’s intentions to increase the number of seats for 3-year-olds.
“We know how vital this service is to families and to the growth of children.” While discussing the Adams administration’s choice to not raise the number of 3-K seats, Gutiérrez remarked, “We should be doing more to expand it.”
As a result of certain open seats in 3-K, the city will not grow, according to David Banks, the city’s chancellor of schools, who made this statement in December. According to Banks, the issue was a “misalignment” of seats, with too many in certain neighborhoods and not enough in others.
The Adams administration, according to Banks, is more concerned with improving the “quality” of early childhood education seats than the number of seats, she said in a prior interview. As federal stimulus funding runs out in 2025, the state comptroller predicts a roughly $200 million shortfall in financing for preschool and three-year-olds.
The mayor’s early childhood education plan, which was unveiled last year, claims that when parents can’t work because of daycare, they lose out on wages and the city’s economy suffers. The proposal estimates that the city loses $2.2 billion in tax income as a result of parents working fewer hours to take care of their kids.
While providers have experienced difficulties getting their bills reimbursed, the city’s handling of its early childhood education program has come under fire recently. The school department struggled to pay provider invoices totaling $13 million that were overdue by more than 30 days last month.
Some providers are hesitant to expand the program right away because of bureaucratic obstacles.
Sonja Neill-Turner, founder and executive director of Brooklyn Sandbox, a Park Slope preschool with 29 city-contracted seats, stated “For a good bill to be really effective and realistic, it has to include the nuts and bolts of getting the funding into the hands of the small preschools, and/or the families.” She contiuned, “How we would divide the cash and how the city tracks those monies going out will be the main concerns.”
