In early June, the legislative session of the New York State Legislature ended for summer. Ongoing at both the state and city level, CCC has been pushing solutions to address housing instability and economic insecurity, early intervention access, youth opportunities and youth justice reforms, behavioral health access and more. During the state budget negotiations, we ran five take action campaigns targeting investments and legislation to improve family and child well-being and worked within state-wide coalitions to elevate priorities that help ensure every New York child is healthy, housed, educated, and safe.

At the state level, conversations mirrored a lot of what’s been and is still being discussed at the city level: lack of affordable child care access, high housing costs, and more. While there is still significant work to be done to uplift New York families overall, there was some really good progress made with state legislation that CCC supported. Reflecting on this year’s session, we are celebrating several legislative victories that promise to advance our collective goals, especially in supporting child care in New York State. The legislative wins we secured in partnership with advocates across the state are a testament to the power of our collective voice and action! Coalitions including the Empire State Child Care Coalition, Kids Can’t Wait, PLAN, the Right to Remain Silent Coalition, and the Raise the Age Coalition have been instrumental in driving this legislation forward.

The following bills have passed both the Senate and Assembly chambers, headed to the Governor’s desk soon. Stay tuned for opportunities to advocate to ensure the Governor passes these bills. Below is a visual of where these bills are in the overall pathway legislation takes from introduction to signing.

End New York’s Rule of Tying Child Care Assistance to Parents’ Exact Hours of Work 

S.8152 (Brisport) / A.8878 (Hevesi) 

The current rule makes it difficult for many working parents – including parents working in the gig economy or in retail with fluctuating schedules – to access child care. This “decoupling” law was passed overwhelmingly by the Legislature in 2023, then vetoed by the Governor. This legislation will enable parents working nontraditional hours to access critical child care assistance. 

Enact Statewide Presumptive Eligibility

S.4667 (Brouk) / A.4099 (Clark) 

Presumptive eligibility is a policy that allows families to receive temporary child care assistance while their eligibility for the program is being determined. This legislation would allow families quick access to child care assistance while waiting for application processing to be completed, helping ensure parents do not lose job opportunities and allowing children to experience more continuity of care. A recently enacted federal rule (Improving Child Care Access, Affordability, and the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF)), clarifies that federal funds can be used to cover the presumptive eligibility period and encourages states to implement this and other policies that will ease enrollment burdens on families.

Eliminate Minimum Earnings and Minimum Work Requirements for CCAP Eligibility 

S.4924 (Ramos) / A.1303 (Clark) 

Currently, parents and caretakers can be ineligible for child care assistance if they earn too little or work too few hours, leaving many families that need child care assistance the most unable to access it. This legislation will address this inequity. 

EI Cost Study  

S.1998A (Rivera)/A.10175 (Paulin) 

This bill requires the New York State Department of Health Commissioner to do a comprehensive assessment of the existing methodology used to determine payment for Early Intervention screenings, evaluations, services, and service coordination, as well as provide recommendations on reimbursement methodology as well as needs under the Early Intervention program. The methodology used to determine reimbursement for Early Intervention services is outdated and based on a delivery model developed 30 years ago, and has resulted in a severe shortage of EI providers. A comprehensive rate methodology and program model assessment is critical for increasing access to EI services.

Safe Landings Act 

S.8724A (Hoylman-Sigal) / A.9321 (Hevesi) 

Currently, many youth who exit foster care fail to receive court-ordered services such as housing, documents, and driver’s licenses. This bill would provide these youth with a mechanism to enforce unmet court orders.

These are highlights of our wins for this session that we will be rallying around to get signed into law! 

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It is important that we take the space to celebrate achievements and progress. CCC has put in a lot of work together with partners and advocates as a community. But with many families still facing barriers to well-being and further to go to create economic equity across the state, we must reflect on the work that still needs to get done. There are also several bills focused on youth justice and family rights that CCC actively pushed for that did not advance, though we are committed to advancing them in the next legislative session. Below are those bills:

Unfortunately, the Youth Justice Innovation Fund and Raise the Age Funding Implementation bill S.9312 (Cleare) / A.10290 (Solages) did not pass. However, the momentum this legislation gained is a testament to our collective organizing. We will continue to work with elected officials to allocate funding for this Innovation Fund so that community-based organizations working directly with youth in supporting prevention, alternatives to incarceration/detention, and reentry care can access funding, and so NYC can secure RTA dollars. This bill did not pass either in the Assembly nor the Senate.  

The Right to Remain Silent S.1099 (Bailey) / A.8923-A (Hevesi) bill also did not pass. This bill prohibits police from interrogating a child under the age of 18 who is in their custody, until the child has consulted with an attorney. Currently, 90% of children waive their Miranda rights, which ultimately results in false statements and harm to young people. This bill would ensure that consultation with a lawyer would be a non-waivable requirement that would exclude any statement taken in violation of the rule from being entered into evidence against the child. This bill did not pass either in the Assembly nor the Senate. 

Another hard loss was the failure to pass the Anti-Harassment bill S.902A (Brisport) / A.02479 (Hevesi) in the Assembly. This bill would have protected families from malicious and unnecessary child welfare reporting, but it only passed in the Senate. We will continue this fight to ensure that all families are protected from such invasive services.  

These setbacks do not deter us though, they only remind us of the ongoing work we will not give up on required to fully realize our vision of every child healthy, housed, educated, and safe. We are thankful to our community of supporters and advocates who help us advance important priorities and legislation for families and children. In the coming months we will be rallying around the legislation headed to the Governor’s desk, so please stay tuned to our work and efforts!