On Tuesday, May 20, Associate Executive Director of Policy Alice Bufkin, Senior Policy Associate Caitlyn Passaretti, and Policy Associate Jenny Veloz submitted testimony to the New York City Council Education Committee for a FY26 Executive Budget Hearing. On behalf of CCC, the testimony highlights the absence of funding and one-year only funding for critical education programs, including mental health supports, preschool special education programming, education support for students in temporary housing and more. The recommendations show where cuts must be restored, as well as where additional investments are needed to support our families, schools and communities.

Read the full testimony below.

Testimony of Alice Bufkin, Caitlyn Passaretti, and Jenny Veloz
Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York
Submitted to the New York City Council FY26 Executive Budget Hearing – Education Committee
May 20^th, 2025

Since 1944, Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York has served as an independent, multi-issue child advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring every New York child is healthy, housed, educated, and safe. CCC does not accept or receive public resources, provide direct services, or represent a sector or workforce; our priority is improving outcomes for children and families through civic engagement, research, and advocacy. We document the facts, engage, and mobilize New Yorkers, and advocate for solutions to ensure the wellbeing of New York’s children, families, and communities.

We would like to thank Chair Joseph and all the members of the New York City Council Education Committee for holding today’s important hearing on Education in the FY26 Executive Budget.

We are pleased that the Fiscal Year 2026 Executive Budget includes long-term funding for a number of critical education programs that were at risk of cuts due to expiring funding. In particular, we appreciate that the Executive Budget restores and baselines $112 million for 3-K seats, as well as $55 million for preschool special education seats. Announced by the Mayor on April 16th, these restorations are key to achieving stability for programs and ensuring families can access the early care services they need. The budget also baselines $14 million for Community Schools and $25 million for extended-day seats, which offer year-round care and care for longer hours for EarlyLearn, 3-K, and Pre-K. Moreover, the Budget provides one-year funding of $5 million for Early Care and Education (ECE) outreach and $25 million for PromiseNYC.

However, several important programs remain unfunded or funded for one year only, leaving their future uncertain. Below we uplift where cuts must be restored, as well as where additional investments are needed to support our families, schools and communities.

Funding to Early Care and Education

We know from extensive engagement with and surveying of NYC families and communities that the demand for affordable childcare 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. We appreciate that the City Council and Administration are engaging in discussions on how to address these barriers and look forward to continued engagement on how to enhance and streamline access to care for children and families.

We greatly appreciate that the Executive Budget restores and baselines $112 million for 3-K seats, $55 million for preschool special education seats, and $25 million for extended-day seats. However, given the continuing challenges families face understanding and accessing the ECE system, we urge the Council and Administration to baseline $5 million for ECE Outreach and Education. Additionally, nearly 8,000 preschoolers continue to wait for legally-mandated services like counseling and speech therapy. We therefore urge City leaders to invest at least $70 million in the final budget to ensure preschoolers with disabilities receive the special education evaluations and services they need and are legally entitled to.

Funding for the K-12 Education System

We are grateful community schools, arts programming, teacher recruitment and high-impact tutoring were funded and baselined in the FY26 Executive Budget. Unfortunately, several other crucial education programs are only funded for one year in this year’s Executive Budget and are facing cuts unless they are baselined this year.

Furthermore, the Executive Budget leaves out Student Success Centers entirely, so it is again at risk of being eliminated as soon as July. Student Success Centers help students at more than 30 high schools prepare for college. We urge City leaders to restore and baseline $3.3 million for Student Success Centers.

CCC also urges the City Council and Mayor to ensure the following education programs are baselined in the FY26 Adopted Budget:

• $4 million Immigrant Family Communications and Outreach
• $80 million for Summer Programming
• $31 million for Learning to Work

Support the Behavioral Health Needs of Students

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 City leaders to take the following actions in the budget to support the mental and emotional wellbeing of students.

• Baseline $5 million to fully implement and sustain the Mental Health Continuum, an innovative model that integrates a range of direct services, including expedited mental healthcare, a NYC Well hotline to advise school staff, mobile response teams to respond to students in crisis, training for school staff in Collaborative Problem Solving, and culturally-responsive family engagement to students with significant mental health challenges. This cross-agency partnership (NYCPS, Health + Hospitals, Department of Health & Mental Hygiene) supports students at 50 high needs. As part of this initiative, the Mayor and H+H announced in April that 16 school-based mental health clinics would be open, serving over 6,000 students across the Bronx and Central Brooklyn. We were glad to see the Executive Budget restore $5 million in FY26 for the Continuum. However, this funding will be for one year only, and the program is at risk if funding is not baselined in this year’s budget ($787k for NYCPS, $3.75 million for H+H, and $472k for DOHMH).
• Baseline $12 million for Restorative Justice practices. Restorative practices address the root causes of behavior, hold students accountable while keeping them in school learning, build and heal relationships, and teach positive behaviors. They also correlate with improved academic outcomes, school climate, and staff-student relationships. We appreciate that $6 million was restored in the FY26 Executive Budget, but urge City leaders to ensure funding for the initiative is fully funded and baselined.
• Invest $3.75 million to expand services for up to 50 school-based mental health clinics. 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 work to 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 need and reducing the use of suspensions, detentions and punitive measures.

These clinics are primarily funded by billing Medicaid and, when available, private insurance for services provided to students. However, this 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.

We were grateful to see the City Council uplift the importance of investing in School-Based Mental Health Clinics in their response to the FY26 Preliminary Budget. A $3.75 million investment would enable up to 50 SMHC to provide the types of comprehensive wraparound services necessary to support the mental and social-emotional needs of students. 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 in the future of expanding funding to all SMHC’s in the city.

Education Access for Students in Temporary Housing

CCC is a steering committee member of the Family Homeless Coalition (FHC), a coalition comprised of 20 organizations representing service and housing providers, children’s advocacy organizations, and people with lived experience with family homelessness. We are united by the goal of preventing family homelessness, improving the well-being of children and families in shelter, and supporting the long-term stability of families with children who leave shelter.

Far too many students struggle with housing instability in New York City. A recent report from Advocates for Children highlighted that in the 2023-2024 school year, over 146,000 NYC experienced some form of homelessness. Over 60,000 (41%) spent time living in City shelters; more than 79,000 (54%) were “doubled up,” or temporarily sharing the housing of others because of a loss of housing or economic hardship; and the remaining 5% were living in hotels or motels, unsheltered.[i] Housing instability has a severe impact on student’s education and overall well-being.

We therefore urge the City Council to support the following reforms to enhance housing stability for NYC students currently experiencing some form of homelessness:

• Increase the percent of families DHS places or re-places in shelter in the same borough as where their children attend school. In the most recent Mayor’s Management Report (MMR), there was small progress made in increasing the number of families DHS placed in shelter in the same borough as the family’s youngest school-age child. However, almost 40% of families in shelter continue to be placed in a different borough from where their youngest child goes to school.
• Stop the implementation of shelter stay limits for new arrival families with children. With the pace of new arrivals slowing and a frightening federal landscape potentially on the horizon for immigrant families in New York City, we oppose the threat of eviction and re-placements for families with children in shelter. The City should eliminate the requirement that families with children in grades K-6 be forced to move shelters after their initial 60-day placement and should eliminate any shelter moves for families with children in school, no matter the grade level.
• Implement the recommendations of the Students in Temporary Housing Transportation Taskforce. This task force created through Local Law 158 developed a set of recommendations that the city should promptly implement to ensure school stability and regular attendance for students in temporary housing.
• Increase access to Early Childhood Education for children in shelter. The percentage of age-eligible children in shelter who participated in Pre-K was around 50% in the most recent publicly stated numbers, a 10-percentage point decrease from pre-Covid numbers. The City should make greater efforts to connect age-eligible children in shelter to Pre-K and 3-K by continuing to make automatic offers for 3-K and Pre-K to families in shelter who did not participate in the application process and ensure that 3-K and Pre-K outreach efforts include a targeted approach to increasing access to and participation in early childhood programs for children in shelter.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony.

[i] Advocates for Children. “Student Homelessness in New York City, 2023-2024”. 2024. file:///C:/Users/JDIAZ/Downloads/Student%20Homelessness%20in%20NYC,%202023-24.pdf