On Monday, March 16, Senior Policy Associate Caitlyn Passaretti and Policy Associate Jenny Veloz co-submitted testimony on behalf of CCC for a FY 2027 Preliminary City Budget Hearing for the Committee on Children and Youth. The testimony highlights the need for investments that support child and family well-being through access to youth programming and services that protect families from child welfare issues. We urge the city budget to address funding needs for the runaway and homeless youth system, afterschool programming, and child care access. 

Read the testimony below. 

Testimony of Caitlyn Passaretti and Jenny Veloz
Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York
Submitted to the New York City Council FY’2027 Preliminary Budget Oversight Hearing
Children and Youth Services Committee
March 16, 2026

For 80 years, Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York (CCC) has been an independent voice for children advancing child and family well-being through research, advocacy, and civic engagement. With deep expertise in data, policy and child-serving systems, CCC champions proven solutions and mobilizes allies to secure reforms that improve child outcomes and promote equity. CCC drives systemic change to ensure every child is healthy, housed, educated, and safe.   

Thank you, Chair Stevens and members of the City Council Children and Youth Committee, for holding today’s important hearing on the Mayor’s FY27Preliminary Budget. CCC’s priorities outlined below center on necessary investments that can improve access to essential youth programming and family services with demonstrated outcomes in youth development, economic security, and community support networks.  

Invest in Youth Opportunity and Youth Services 

Every child deserves access to enriching, engaging, and high-quality afterschool programming. COMPASS and SONYC programs offer art and culture, sports, experiential learning and academic support essential to children’s social-emotional development, health and wellness, and academic success across age ranges. These programs are also a lifeline for working parents who deeply value having their children engaged in programming while they are at work.  

CCC, a co-leader of the Campaign for Children, urges the City to release the new COMPASS awards from the 2025 RFP process as soon as possible. Notice of awards will allow providers to adequately plan programming and service provision. Additionally, we urge the city leaders to remain committed to the expansion of afterschool with accompanying necessary supports for the workforce.  

Adequately funded programs are necessary to make meaningful impact for children, youth, and families and critical to ensure free and affordable, high-quality afterschool options for children and youth.  CCC urges the City to update the COMPASS and SONYC provider rates to ensure they adequately compensate providers and enable the City to achieve its goal of fully funded elementary and middle school programs.  

Enhance Summer Programming Efficiency 

CCC supports the baselined restoration of the $19.6 million for the DYCD Summer Rising programs in the Preliminary Budget, as well as a $26.2 million increase over FY27 for NYCPS Summer Rising programs. Early funding restorations ensure program stability and allow city agencies and nonprofit providers to address persistent issues that challenge Summer Rising programs.  

Additionally, we urge the City to address the following operational issues to ensure summer programming serves families and youth as effectively as possible:  

• Return to community-based enrollment with nonprofit providers instead of New York City Public Schools: Currently, NYCPS’s system does not successfully integrate with the program used by DYCD, making it challenging for CBOs to manage enrollment or update waitlists. Returning to community-based enrollment with CBOs will allow on-site enrollment and waitlists management, thus ensuring effective use of available capacity.  
• Address workforce shortages: Limited and inconsistent availability of paraprofessionals during summer programming significantly limits access for students with disabilities. 
• Provide Clear Communication: Communication between NYC Public Schools, the Department of Health, and CBOs remains unclear, especially regarding critical staffing needs, background checks, enrollment, and updated regulations. Improved coordination is essential to the smooth operation of summer programs. 
• Minimize Program Relocations: Relocating programs to new buildings, especially when CBO staff lack prior relationships, disrupts years of trust and collaboration between CBOs and schools, and can often lead to competition for space with other co-located CBOs. We strongly recommend minimizing relocations and ensuring adequate time and support for CBOs and NYCPS staff to plan and acclimate to new settings when relocation is unavoidable.  

Finally, we urge the City to expand summer programs options for families. Limiting options to only school-based models results in inequitable access and limits alignment with youth and family preferences for full-day camp options with more flexible programming. We look forward to collaborating with city leaders to support and expand models that better meet the needs of families and provide enriching programming for youth. 

Enhance Services for Systems-Involved Youth and Families 

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, New York City Public 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 disruptions for students in foster care sometimes forcing school or foster home transfers to access an education. 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. 

Restore Alternatives to Incarceration (ATI) and Supportive Programming for Youth and Young Adults 

Extensive research demonstrates the positive impacts of Alternatives to Incarceration (ATI) and reentry programs, including lowering recidivism and crime.1 Moreover, studies estimate between $3.46-$5.54 in returns for every dollar invested in ATI programs in addition to reduced costs for the criminal justice system and better community health outcomes.2 

Despite the well-established benefits of these programs, since 2023, the City Administration has cut millions from probation programs proven to support re-entry by connecting young people to mentorship and services. Failing to provide robust reentry services or supportive probation programs will harm youth and is counterproductive to building safe communities.  

CCC supports the recommendations of the New York City Youth Justice Coalition, including the following investments and restorations in the FY27 Budget:  

• Restore and invest $4.1 million for the IMPACT program  
• Restore and baseline $5 million for the NextSTEPs program 
• Invest $40 million for the Community Justice Reentry Network 
• Baseline $2.4 million with a cost-of-living adjustment to each new year of funding for the Mentoring and Advocacy Program (MAAP)  
• Invest $30 million for NYC’s Assertive Community Engagement and Success (ACES) program to ensure that all young people with risk factors have access to this kind of prevention model 
• Maintain current funding for Family Court Alternative to Detention Programs to ensure young people and their families are successfully supported in the community.  
• Expand Parent Support Services and create an open door policy for Family Support Services for youth as a prevention intervention 
• Invest $8.1 million for the Anti-Gun Violence Employment Program   
• Invest $8.5 million to reinstate, expand and fully fund YES services with original work scope as an effective impactful preventive tool  
• Invest $59.1 million for ATLAS funding 
• Invest $1.6 billion to raise the Cost-Per-Participant funding for youth in detention in COMPASS programming   
• Invest $3.2 million for NeON program funding  
• Invest $3.7 million for the WorksPlus Program 
• Restore and baseline $130,000 for the Adolescent Portable Therapy  

Deepen Investments in the Runaway and Homeless Youth System 

Numerous challenges face Runaway and Homeless Youth (RHY) in New York. The Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) is responsible for supporting this population; however, it is not uncommon for RHY to also be involved with ACS, DHS, and HRA in efforts to access permanent housing or social services. We must ensure that RHY have access to more beds and more support. Since youth do not have a right to shelter and DYCD does not have sufficient capacity for young people (especially older youth), many young people resort to living the streets or other dangerous living situations. We urge the City to increase provider rates, which have not been updated since 2017, to $70,000 per bed to provide safe, temporary housing for youth who otherwise would be without a stable housing option. 

Furthermore, we also urge the city to restore and baseline $1.6 million to maintain funding for the Peer Navigator positions and $1.6 million for the housing specialists in the DYCD-RHY System. The housing and youth services systems are complex, and it is critical to have a trusted support person to offer advice, resources, and answers for young people trying to navigate the system. 

Finally, we want to alert the City Council that national advocates warn that potential federal cuts to the Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) can result in all upstate RHY shelters closing further straining NYC youth shelters. It is essential we advocate for the continuation of funding for upstate shelters, as the NYC system is not equipped to meet the needs of homeless youth in both within and outside of the city. Collective advocacy at the state-level is essential to maintain funding for upstate shelters, as the NYC system is not equipped to meet the needs. 

Invest in Child Welfare Primary Prevention and Workforce Stability 

Fundamental to preventing child welfare involvement is investing in the primary prevention supports families need to be safe and secure, including housing, child care, healthy food, and economic supports.   

At the same time, the prevention workforce currently in place to support families is in crisis. In 2025, CCC and the Council of Family and Child Caring Agencies (COFCCA) surveyed prevention services providers to better understand the challenges facing families involved in the child welfare system and providers’ ability to serve them. Our results echoed the need for upstream prevention and workforce stabilization.  

To help ensure that prevention services can best serve children and families, we recommend the following: 

• Enhance child welfare prevention contract flexibility to allow providers the ability to aptly respond to different family circumstances
• Invest in salary increases, scholarships and tuition assistance to help agencies sustain a highly trained and credentialed child welfare workforce.
• Ensure that child welfare staff are paid completive salaries and agencies are paid the true cost of services on prevention contracts.
• Reform the current NYC procurement system to ensure timely payments to contracted agencies.

Support Families in Need of Child Care 

Promise NYC provides childcare assistance to low-income families who may be ineligible for other, federally funded subsidized childcare. We are disappointed that this year’s Preliminary Budget does not restore $25 million for Promise NYC. Though some families served through PromiseNYC may receive services through recent 3-K and 2-K expansions, PromiseNYC offers care to a wider scope of families that may not find care through other pathways. The program offers flexibility to enable families to access services regardless of geography or age of child. We therefore strongly urge city leaders to increase and baseline $50 million in funding for Promise NYC to strengthen child care access for all NYC families. 

 Preserving Child Care Voucher Access

In recent years, New York City and other counties have used Child Care Block Grant (CCBG) funds to significantly expand the number of families receiving child care assistance.  CCBG funds support child care assistance for families on cash assistance; contracted child care for children 0-2 year olds and 3-and 4-year-olds in extended day/year; and child care vouchers for low-income working families and those engaged in training or other qualified activities. Last year, the City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) projected a funding shortfall for families applying for child care vouchers through the state’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP). Despite the state allocating $350 million in one-time funding to address this shortfall, thousands of New York City children were placed on waitlists. 

Although Governor Hochul’s FY27 Executive Budget includes increased investments for CCAP, including $475 million in one-time funding for New York City, this funding will be insufficient to completely eliminate the waitlist. As of January 2026, there were approximately16,000 children and their families waiting for services.i Families on waitlists will have to make difficult decisions to ensure that care for their children, including relying on family members to fill the gap, leaving their jobs or reducing employment hours, or putting additional economic strain on already struggling households. The Administration must continue working with the State to ensure sufficient funding for child care vouchers and prepare to address shortfalls with city funding. 

Thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony.