While federal pandemic aid has put the state in a strong financial position, New York’s children and families are at a critical juncture.

The Covid-19 health and economic crisis has severely impacted the lives of children and families. Low-income households and communities of color have faced disproportionate rates of illness and death, loss of income, heightened housing insecurity, and more. These unprecedented challenges have not only exacerbated existing inequities but have drawn attention to long unaddressed needs and barriers to well-being rooted in structural racism and systemic discrimination, with particularly negative impacts wrought on women of color and immigrant households.

The investments our state makes in children and families now will impact the lives of New Yorkers for generations to come.

As state leaders debate the state’s Fiscal Year 2023 budget, CCC created a list of priorities for Albany to focus on. These priorities will ensure an equitable recovery from the pandemic, economic mobility for families, and well-being for children.

Read our for the FY 2022-2023 Budget by downloading the publication or reading them below.

Healthy

Address the child and adolescent behavioral health crisis

Support and make permanent investments and rate enhancements in the Executive Budget, including the enhanced FMAP increase for outpatient mental health clinics, $7.5 million for Residential Treatment Facilities, $7.5 million for Home-Based Crisis Intervention, and the alignment of behavioral health benefits between Medicaid and Child Health Plus (CHP). 

Support the 5.4% COLA for human service providers in the Executive Budget, including language that includes children’s services as part of the permanent extension of the COLA; support workforce bonuses in the Executive Budget and address administrative barriers to disbursing funds; and further address severe workforce shortages through measures including a worker retention tax credit and employee assistance grants.

Provide additional funding to prevent a rate cliff for Children and Family Treatment and Support Services (CFTSS) and Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS), and expand funding for Family Peer Advocacy by $5.5 million to include youth peer, skill building, respite and care coordination for families without Medicaid.

Reform the rate methodology for children’s mental health services and conduct an annual assessment of the fiscal viability of clinical rates.

Enhance funding and reform billing to support two-gen-eration, multidisciplinary models that integrate so-cial-emotional wellbeing and social determinants of health in pediatric primary care.

Improve outcomes for young children with develop-mental delays and disabilities

Increase rates for all Early Intervention providers and evaluators by 11%; utilize funding from the Covered Lives assessment to help support a rate increase.

Conduct a comprehensive assessment of the methodol-ogy used to determine payment for all Early Intervention evaluations, services, and service coordination, and adjust rates accordingly (S.5676/A.6579).Require that the Bureau of Early Intervention publish an annual disaggregated report on referrals, assessments, enrollment, and timely receipt of services.

Improve health coverage options for families and strengthen New York’s public health infrastructure

Restore the State’s reimbursement for NYC’s Article 6 General Public Health Works program to 36%.

Pass (A880A/S1572A) to provide health coverage to all New Yorkers, regardless of immigration status.

Include immigrants in the state’s plan to take the federal option to expand postpartum coverage from 60 days to one year and extend the coverage period to the first three years post-partum to ensure continuous coverage for parent and child.

Repeal the Medicaid Global Cap to allow the Medicaid program to respond to the evolving health needs of children and families.

Housed

Prevent evictions and a surge in family homelessness, keeping children and families housed

Pass the Housing Access Voucher Program (S2804B/ A3701B) to create New York’s first statewide rental subsidy program.

Expand access to the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) by leveraging $2 billion in pandemic relief funds that the state has yet to allocate.

Support proposed funding in the Executive Budget for 7,000 more Empire State Supportive Housing units while ensuring that survivors of domestic violence remain a priority population and families face as few barriers as possible in accessing support.

Support proposals in the Executive Budget to invest $25 billion over five years to create and sustain 100,000 affordable homes throughout the state, and to create the Building Conversion Act to allow for Class B hotels in or near a residentially zoned district in NYC to convert their units into permanent residences.

Educated

Expand access to early care and education to promote school readiness

Create and fund a path to statewide universal child care by investing $5 billion to significantly expand access to child care and properly compensate the child care workforce:

• Increase the Executive Budget proposal of $125 million for subsidy reimbursements to $600 million.
• Invest $3 billion to expand child care subsidy eligibility to all families regardless of income or immigration status; ensure high-quality care that is available even during non-traditional hours; and meet the needs of all students, including those with disabilities, experiencing homelessness, or who are multilingual learners.
• Increase the Executive Budget’s proposed investment to raise wages for the child care workforce from $75 million to $1.4 billion to properly compensate workers and move toward pay parity with public school teachers.

Ensure New York’s expansion of child care assistance provides equal access and needed supports to children with disabilities by providing enhanced rates and supports for providers 

Invest $500 million to continue to expand access to quality full-day pre-K for all children in the state by providing at least $10,000 per child.

Equitably resource public schools and address the needs of ALL students

Support the $2.1 billion increase in state education aid proposed in the Executive Budget.

Amend the per-student cost rate of after-school programming to reflect actual costs of running high-quality programs; this includes an increase of $40.4 million for Advantage Afterschool contracts, an increase of $87.5 million for Empire State Afterschool contracts, and an increase of $40.1 million for Extended School Day/School Violence Prevention programs.

Ensure the full funding of Foundation Aid, as proposed in the Executive Budget.

Support the Governor’s proposed administrative increase of 11% for preschool special education programs and school-age classrooms serving children with significant disabilities for the 2022-23 school year.

Allocate $1.72 million to design a new preschool special education tuition rate-setting methodology and discontinue the annual reconciliation process, as recommended by the Board of Regents.

Support $100 million in the Executive Budget for school based behavioral supports but direct a portion of funds for grants to start up or staff school-based mental health clinics.

Safe

Reimagine child welfare services to strengthen families and communities

Support the Children and Families Reinvestment Act, recognizing that primary prevention strengthens communities and provides strong social networks and resources for families:

• Restore and secure full funding of the state and local 65/35 match for protection, prevention, and independent living services.
• Fund KinGAP outside of the Foster Care Block Grant, mirroring the structure of adoption subsidies, to incentivize more counties to use kin as a permanent placement option.
• Pass (A.1777) which increases the value of the child welfare housing subsidy from $300 to $725 to promote family reunification and independent living.
• Create the Child and Family Wellbeing Fund to support the growth of primary prevention programs focused on the needs of families.

Oppose the Executive Budget proposal that requires counties to meet 100 percent of costs related to the newly increased foster parent rate; recommend increasing the state’s investment in the Foster Care Block Grant to address all costs associated with new foster parent rates.

Invest in youth and communities

Support the Executive Budget proposals to invest $46.1 million in the Summer Youth Employment Program, representing an increase of $1 million helping to meet minimum wage requirements.

Oppose the Executive Budget proposal to cut $15.8 million from various labor programs, many of which support youth apprenticeship and employment, and invest $10 million annually to adequately fund the State’s 18 YouthBuild programs.
Oppose the $51 million decrease in the Executive Budget for various children and families’ programs, including but not limited to settlement houses, Kinship programs, human services initiatives, and Safe Harbor. 

Support Executive Budget proposals to prevent gun violence by prioritizing community investments, including $10 million in pretrial community-based services to divert people from detention, $24.9 million for community-based gun violence response, $50 million to meet the capital needs of communities most impacted by gun violence, and $25 million for communities impacted by hate crimes.

Support the Executive Budget proposal to maintain funding for Raise the Age implementation at $250 million.

• Require every county to seek the funds appropriated to support youth impacted by the RTA reform. 
• Ensure is eligible to receive funds to restore state support for the Close to Home initiative. 

Establish a mechanism through which to reinvest sav-ings associated with closures of state youth placement facilities into community services that promote healthy youth development and community safety, such as primary prevention, behavioral health, youth employment, and art & culture programs.

Pass (A3536A/S5749A) to strengthen existing protections under the Youthful Offender law and create a new status covering young adults up to age 26 to help youth overcome barriers to future employment and education.

Combat food and income insecurity and support the Human Services workforce

Pass (S5866/A3146) to increase the maximum available amount of the Empire State Child Credit and expand the credit to cover children under four and 17 years old. 

Support the #JustPay Campaign for the essential human services workforce by establishing and funding an annual cost-of-living adjustment on human services contracts; setting a living wage floor for state human service workers; and implementing and funding a wage and benefits schedule for government-funded human service workers.

Support the priorities of the NYC Food Policy Alliance, including by increasing funding for the Nutrition Outreach and Education Program by $2 million; Increasing

funding for the Hunger Prevention and Nutrition Assistance Program to $54 million; Providing $85 million to continue the Nourish NY Program; and adopting statewide Community Eligibility Provision across NYS to allow implementation of a statewide universal school meals program.