City Leaders Must Expand Affordable Child Care and Strengthen Student Supports
Testimony & Public Comments
June 8, 2026
On June 8, CCC’s Policy Team submitted testimony to the New York City Council Education Committee’s Executive Budget Hearing. On behalf of CCC, the testimony urges the council to make budget investments that expand affordable child care, support children with disabilities, improve workforce pay, reduce barriers to enrollment, and ensure sufficient funding for child care vouchers. It also urges the restoration of key K–12 education programs, including school transportation for students in foster care and expanded school-based mental health services.
Read the testimony below.
Testimony of Alice Bufkin, Jenny Veloz, and Caitlyn Passaretti
Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York
Submitted to the New York City Council FY’2027 Executive Budget Oversight Hearing
Education Committee
June 8, 2026
We would like to thank Chair Dinowitz and members of the New York City Council Education and Finance Committees for holding today’s important hearing on Education in the FY27 Executive Budget.
Early Care and Education
Households across the city face an affordability crisis, with over 90% of families unable to afford care without a publicly funded option, such as child care vouchers. With child care costs continuing to increase, 39% of families with children under five in New York City rely on publicly funded child care.[1] Although New York City has led the nation in introducing universal Pre-K, expanding access to 3-K, and more recently implementing a 2-K pilot program, families continue to struggle to navigate the system and access services.
We know from extensive engagement with and surveying of NYC families and communities that the demand for affordable child care is enormous across the city, and that open seats are a reflection of barriers in access rather than lack of demand. Based on a citywide survey and focus groups with parents and providers, it is evident that families face significant bureaucratic barriers to entry, lack of knowledge of existing programs, and options that do not match families’ needs and work schedules. Additionally, the ECE system faces threats due to the ongoing inequity between NYPS and community-based salaries; the burden of unpaid city contracts; and a host of operational barriers. These issues were chronicled in our report, The Youngest New Yorkers.
New funding from the City and State to strengthen 3-K and pilot 2-K programs offers an enormous opportunity to reach more families with the care they need. CCC believes it is critical to approach a path to universal child care.[2]
We are pleased that the FY27 Executive Budget includes additional funding for preschool special education. This will be critical for reducing waitlists for services, which are currently in violation of the legal rights of children with disabilities.
We urge the Administration and the Council to ensure the needs of children with disabilities are prioritized in the City’s current and future ECE programs. This includes thoughtfully integrating EI services and EI providers into the new 2-K expansion sites. More generally, we urge the administration to lean on data to ensure expansion efforts prioritize children who face the most risks and barriers.
We applaud the inclusion in the Executive Budget of baselined funding for ECE outreach, staffing and contract enhancements. These are positive steps in stabilizing the ECE workforce. We are also pleased that the administration will be maintaining funding for the Birth to Two initiative that expands child care access to families with children 0-2 years old in high need neighborhoods and investments in Special Education Pre-K Expansion.
However, we urge the Administration and City Council to implement the following recommendations to ensure the path to universality:
- Create pay parity for the ECE workforce, including by:
- Expediting payments of collectively bargained salary increases,
- Bringing salaries and benefits in contracted ECE programs to parity with their counterparts in public schools,
- Adjusting rates in home-based programs to allow providers to earn salaries at parity with public school salaries, and
- Instituting longevity differentials for ECE workforce in line with comparable roles in public schools
- Prioritize those most marginalized by our existing ECE system, including children with disabilities, immigrant families, and families in shelter or other temporary housing.
- Ensure that staff at community-based preschool special education programs are included in the recent labor contract agreement enhancements
- Ensure Early Intervention and developmental supports are thoughtfully integrated in the City’s 2-K expansion.
- Although the State included $475 million in additional voucher funding over the next two fiscal years, this funding will be insufficient to completely ensure that the 25,600 children and families currently on the waitlist receive child care. As such, the Administration must include sufficient city funding for child care vouchers to address this funding shortfall.
- Continue to convert school-day, school year seats to extended day, year round ECE seats to increase options for families with young children
- Strengthen the Family Child Care workforce by implementing funding and administrative reforms, recognizing that the FCC workforce is the backbone of infant and toddler care
- Allow for providers to directly enroll participants in ECE programs to streamline the process and allow more direct access to service
- Strengthen the care system for all children by strengthening access to afterschool and summer programs for children age 6-12
Restore Funding for the K-12 Education System
We are pleased that Learning to Work was funded and baselined in the FY27 Executive Budget. Unfortunately, many other crucial education programs are only funded through the end of June and are at risk of being eliminated if they are not restored and baselined.
CCC joins the Coalition for Equitable Education Funding urging the City Council and Administration to ensure the following education programs are extended and baselined in the FY27 Adopted Budget:
- $12 million for Sensory Exploration, Education and Discovery (SEED)
- $6 million for Restorative Justice
- $4 million Immigrant Family Communications and Outreach
- $5 million for Mental Health Continuum
- $3.3 million for Student Success Centers
Ensure Transportation for Youth in Foster Care
While both federal and state law require the City to provide transportation to students in foster care so they can remain in their original schools, NYCPS currently does not guarantee any form of transportation to students in foster care. It can take weeks or even months for NYCPS to arrange bus service, causing significant disruptions for students in foster care. In fact, during the 2024-25 school year, 55% of students in foster care were chronically absent—missing at least one out of every ten school days—and one in five transferred schools at least once.
The City should invest $3 million to provide interim transportation for students in foster care awaiting bus service, ensuring uninterrupted access to school at a critical time.
Enhance Students’ Access to Community-Based Services Provided through School-Based Mental Health Clinics (SBMHC)
Schools play an essential role in meeting the behavioral health needs of children, yet New York City’s approach to addressing the social-emotional needs of students in schools has often been fragmented and insufficient. Far too many students experiencing an emotional crisis are still sent to emergency rooms, subjected to police intervention, or punished with disciplinary practices such as suspension.
Schools need the resources and training necessary to support the mental health of all students, rather than relying on punitive and traumatizing responses to student behavior. We urge you to take the following actions in the budget to support the mental and emotional well-being of students.
Article 31 School-Based Mental Health clinics provide on-site services to children during the school day, including diagnosis, psychiatry, and individual and family counseling. SBMHC staff work closely with school staff to identify children in need and coordinate services. They engage the whole family and can serve family members at their community location. SBMHCs provide crisis mental health services, ensuring children receive a compassionate response when they are in crisis and reducing the use of suspensions, detentions and punitive measures.
These clinics are primarily funded by Medicaid and, when available, private insurance. However, funding is deeply insufficient. For example, Medicaid does not cover services to children without a diagnosis, and clinics are not reimbursed for services provided to children without health coverage. Other essential supports that clinics can offer schools – such as mental health education and training for staff, de-escalating a child-in-crisis scenario to prevent law enforcement involvement, and consulting on specific behavioral supports for classrooms – are not reimbursable through the Article 31 SBMHC model.
A $3.75 million investment would enable up to 50 SBMHC to provide the types of comprehensive wraparound services necessary to support students’ mental and social-emotional needs. Flexible funding to meet the specific needs of schools could include hiring an after school social worker for the clinic; hiring a behavioral specialist to consult with clinic staff several times each week; hiring a family/peer support worker; hiring a clinician that specializes in working in schools and advising on behavior supports for students; and numerous other targeted interventions designed to complement the school-based mental health clinic model.
We urge city leaders to invest $3.75 million to expand school-based mental health clinic services in up to 50 clinics. Ultimately, we recommend a long-term goal of expanding funding to all SBMHCs in the city.
