Significant child care relief – an estimated nearly $450 million – is on its way to New York. But in order to ensure children and parents have reliable child care, and essential child care providers can continue to provide safe, quality care to young children, we need to improve the distribution of funds.
“It is critical that the new funding be deployed swiftly and with a more comprehensive and integrated strategy than was realized with CARES, one that is sensitive to both statewide imperatives as well as local needs and capacities. Along with many statewide advocates, we believe the best way to accomplish this is for OCFS to rely on its existing child care subsidy system structure, and grant these funds to the 58 Social Services Districts in the state. Specifically, OCFS should require counties to declare an intention to spend the funds on the child care system in their communities within certain parameters, and explicitly indicate the purposes the funds will be used for. Then OCFS should quickly distribute the funds proportionally using the existing subsidy allocations as a model.”
Click here to read the complete opinion piece written by State Senator Shelley Mayer and Child Care Council Kathy Halas, then please take these actions:
- Participate in the 2021 Early Advocacy Tuesdays, sponsored by Winning Beginning NY and the Empire State Campaign for Child Care. There's still time to register for the February 2nd Kick-off and Virtual Press Conference from 12:30 to 2:00 pm. Click here to register.
- Use the same link above to join Kathy Halas for virtual meetings with members of Westchester’s NYS delegation on February 9th and 16th.
- Submit a letter to the editor of the Lohud.com/The Journal News in support of the opinion piece above.
Questions about how to get involved in our advocacy efforts? Email Kathy Halas at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
