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American Military News
03-05-2025
- Business
- American Military News
NYC families at risk of losing child care subsidies as Mayor Adams, Gov. Hochul spar over funding
Mayor Eric Adams' latest budget plan does not include millions of dollars in funding needed to keep thousands of the city's families on child care vouchers, putting a critical program for working families at risk of being significantly chopped down in scale. Adams had been counting on the state to pony up hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure no parent loses access to their current subsidy. But Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers included only $350 million in the state budget to help avert a looming fiscal shortfall, with Hochul saying the city needed to come up with the rest. Rather than include that money in his proposal Thursday, Adams told reporters at Bayside High School in Queens that he was still pushing to get the money from Albany — an unlikely scenario given a state budget deal announced earlier this week. 'We're still going to fight,' Adams told reporters at Bayside High School in Queens. 'We believe that this was a state program. We were encouraged to enroll as many students as possible.' 'This was their project. They funded it — and to now say, 'We don't want to fund it anymore,' that's wrong,' he said. A final municipal budget will be negotiated with the City Council by the end of next month. Under the terms of the deal in Albany, New York City has to match the state's investment in order to receive the new funds, according to the governor's office. 'With these new resources, we'll offer New York City the opportunity to match our commitment, solving this year's crisis,' Hochul said at the State Capitol on Monday, where she announced the agreement. 'Every family deserves access to high-quality child care.' A report by The New School's Center for New York City Affairs estimated the city needed between $823 to $907 million to prevent families from being kicked out of the initiative, known as the Child Care Assistance Program, and other severe disruptions. In a private briefing on the city budget Thursday morning with Council members, Adams expressed dismay over Albany's arrangement: 'They're making us pick up $300 million of their program,' he said in a recording, obtained by the Daily News. But with budget bills still not printed, sources at the virtual meeting said the mayor urged Council members to keep pushing Albany to provide the extra funding, despite the deal seemingly being in place. Legislative leaders have questioned whether Hochul announced the general agreement too early with other key issues still being hashed out. 'We're still negotiating with the state,' Tiffany Raspberry, Adams' deputy mayor for intergovernmental affairs, told reporters. 'We're still in constant conversations every day. So, we're going to advocate for New Yorkers until the ink is dry on those bills.' The governor's office has defended its position by pointing to the discrepancies between how much the state versus the city contributes to the subsidy program, which is just one facet of the city's complex child care system. Others — such as funding for the city's popular 3-K program or a pilot that extends the hours care is available — were included in the mayor's budget on Thursday. 'Since taking office, Gov. Hochul has increased funding for child care subsidies in New York City by 124% while city spending has remained relatively flat for over 25 years,' said Avery Cohen, a spokeswoman for Hochul. 'Our increases in funding have advanced an agenda to make child care more accessible and affordable for families statewide.' 'Even with massive state subsidies, keeping hundreds of thousands of kids enrolled in child care must be a shared responsibility,' she said. There are 130,000 New York children covered by the Child Care Assistance Program. In the years following the pandemic, the city's Administration for Children's Services, which administers the program locally, used an increase in child care funding to significantly expand the vouchers. In 2022, there were about 7,400 children enrolled with a low-income voucher. Today, there are close to 63,000 children receiving assistance, available to families that earn less than 85% of the state's median income. But funding for subsidized care did not keep pace with the uptake in vouchers. Without new funding, ACS previously estimated between 4,000 and 7,000 children could lose vouchers every month, as reimbursement costs rise and more parents on cash assistance — who are first in line for the vouchers — go back to work. The fiscal cliff was first reported by New York Focus in February. Advocates warned that any funding shortfalls could have profound effects on children and their parents, including their ability to work. Pete Nabozny, a policy director at The Children's Agenda, part of the Empire State Campaign for Child Care that pushed for the voucher funding, said he was waiting for more details before he could tell if the investment was really going to help mitigate the harm. 'The prospect of a good chunk of those kids losing care and parents scrambling, wondering how they're going to pay their bills … ,' said Nabozny. 'At scale, it really threatened to be an incredibly disruptive period for families, but also for employers and businesses and our whole economy.' ___ © 2025 New York Daily News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Adams' $115B ‘Best Budget Ever' is chocked full of freebies fit for an election year — but critics say it doesn't prepare NYC for the worst
The 'Best Budget Ever' may not prepare for the worst. Mayor Eric Adams served up a $115 billion election year spending plan Thursday that's stuffed with voter-pleasing goodies, but that was still slammed by critics for squirreling away relatively little for a rainy day. Hizzoner, who faces an uphill re-election battle, unveiled his 2026 executive budget during a campaign-like event from his alma mater Bayside High School in Queens, rather than City Hall, from which such announcements have traditionally been done. 'This is not a budget that favors the few. It is budget for all of you,' Adams said, while flanked by students. 'In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that our fiscal Year 2026 executive budget is the best budget ever.' The budget lavishes $1.4 billion on programs and services that had faced cuts — such as libraries, early child education and the City University of New York. It also launches a universal after-school program and increases education funding by $376 million. The spending plan is the largest Adams has proposed since taking office in 2022, with last year's executive budget proposal coming in at $111.6 billion. 'Welcome to the election year!' said veteran campaign strategist Hank Sheinkopf, adding that incumbent mayors usually throw caution to the wind when seeking a second term. 'An election year means living in the moment. Tomorrow, next year is a long time away,' Sheinkopf told The Post. 'It's 'spend whatever we can now.' It's like a bank robbery.' Critics quickly pounced on Adams seemingly failing to plan for the possibility of tough economic times in the near future, from President Trump's tariffs, a widely anticipated upcoming recession and potential federal funding cuts. 'Despite being flush with cash, Mayor Eric Adams' Fiscal Year 2026 Executive Budget fails to address the dual threats of looming federal budget cuts and a possible recession,' said Andrew Rein, president of the nonpartisan fiscal watchdog group Citizens Budget Commission. 'Instead of wisely adding $1 billion in next year's General Reserve to soften the first blows of federal cuts and $2 billion to the Rainy Day Fund, the budget increases spending to an unaffordable level.' Rein said the city should have between $8 and $10 billion in reserves for potential choppy economic waters — a sum that city budget Director Jacques Jiha agreed would be needed, if the Big Apple were in a 'doomsday' scenario. 'We're not looking at doomsday, we're looking at a slowdown in the economy,' he said. 'We believe we have adequate reserves.' Adams' preliminary budget, released in January, was blasted by opponents, including in the progressive City Council, for needlessly cutting services. But his administration maintained those slashes were necessary due to skyrocketing costs from the migrant crisis — which Jiha said has now cost the city more than $7 billion. The mayor had begged Albany lawmakers in February for $1.1 billion to deal with the migrant crisis, contending then that the city needed it in 12 weeks. City Hall officials offered nary a peep about the ask since then — and the supposed shortfall apparently has been covered by savings, with Jiha saying only 'Money is fungible' as an explanation. The budget announced Thursday is Adams' first since the crisis largely subsided, and includes these spending increases and reversed cuts: $15.7 million for libraries $96 million restoring CUNY savings $298 million for school nurses An overall near-$18 million increase to the parks budget $92 million in annual funding for citywide 3-K $20 million for new universal after-school programs A $3 billion contribution for the MTA's capital plan 'Adams is using this budget to promote his re-election. He doesn't want to have much of a fight with the council,' said Nicole Gelinas, senior fellow at the conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute. 'It's pre-emptive capitulation to the council,' she added, noting Adams was proposing $1.7 billion more in spending compared to his preliminary budget. 'Adams is blowing out the agency spending,' Gelinas said. '[He] is squandering the last of his budget credibility.' Not all programs and departments saw a funding increase. The following budget cuts were included in the plan: $308 million for NYPD $111 million for FDNY $1.57 billion for Department of Social Services $1.19 billion for Health + Hospitals $840 million for Department of Homeless Services $801 million for Administration for Children's Services Talks with City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who is not related to Hizzoner and is running for the Democratic mayoral nomination, will continue until the June 30 deadline to pass the budget. Adams' plan offered plenty of fodder from candidates hoping to boot him from Gracie Mansion, such as City Comptroller Brad Lander — who claimed the mayor was 'failing to protect New Yorkers' by not putting more cash in reserves. Former city comptroller and current mayoral candidate Scott Stringer also blasted Adams for failing to prepare for a potential 'extraordinary loss of funding for New York City.' Adrienne Adams offered less gloom and doom — though she still cautioned against getting too comfortable. 'I think that the budget right now is good, but we can never be too certain about what is coming around the corner with this Trump administration,' she said. Adams, who boasted of confronting then-President Joe Biden for migrant funding, hasn't been nearly as vocal about his growing ally Trump. He said he hasn't been in contact with the White House, even as he acknowledged that the current global climate was creating 'uncharted waters.' Adams' top deputy, however, was quick to put a positive spin on the potential financial woes. 'We are best positioned to address with Washington those issues going forward,' said First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro. 'Even asking a question about a doomsday scenario is to be with those pessimistic and political opportunists who don't bet on New York, who are saying, 'The sky is falling.' 'The sky isn't falling.'
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NYC families at risk of losing child care subsidies as Mayor Adams, Gov. Hochul spar over funding
NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams' latest budget plan does not include millions of dollars in funding needed to keep thousands of the city's families on child care vouchers, putting a critical program for working families at risk of being significantly chopped down in scale. Adams had been counting on the state to pony up hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure no parent loses access to their current subsidy. But Gov. Kathy Hochul and state lawmakers included only $350 million in the state budget to help avert a looming fiscal shortfall, with Hochul saying the city needed to come up with the rest. Rather than include that money in his proposal Thursday, Adams told reporters at Bayside High School in Queens that he was still pushing to get the money from Albany — an unlikely scenario given a state budget deal announced earlier this week. 'We're still going to fight,' Adams told reporters at Bayside High School in Queens. 'We believe that this was a state program. We were encouraged to enroll as many students as possible.' 'This was their project. They funded it — and to now say, 'We don't want to fund it anymore,' that's wrong,' he said. A final municipal budget will be negotiated with the City Council by the end of next month. Under the terms of the deal in Albany, New York City has to match the state's investment in order to receive the new funds, according to the governor's office. 'With these new resources, we'll offer New York City the opportunity to match our commitment, solving this year's crisis,' Hochul said at the State Capitol on Monday, where she announced the agreement. 'Every family deserves access to high-quality child care.' A report by The New School's Center for New York City Affairs estimated the city needed between $823 to $907 million to prevent families from being kicked out of the initiative, known as the Child Care Assistance Program, and other severe disruptions. In a private briefing on the city budget Thursday morning with Council members, Adams expressed dismay over Albany's arrangement: 'They're making us pick up $300 million of their program,' he said in a recording, obtained by the Daily News. But with budget bills still not printed, sources at the virtual meeting said the mayor urged Council members to keep pushing Albany to provide the extra funding, despite the deal seemingly being in place. Legislative leaders have questioned whether Hochul announced the general agreement too early with other key issues still being hashed out. 'We're still negotiating with the state,' Tiffany Raspberry, Adams' deputy mayor for intergovernmental affairs, told reporters. 'We're still in constant conversations every day. So, we're going to advocate for New Yorkers until the ink is dry on those bills.' The governor's office has defended its position by pointing to the discrepancies between how much the state versus the city contributes to the subsidy program, which is just one facet of the city's complex child care system. Others — such as funding for the city's popular 3-K program or a pilot that extends the hours care is available — were included in the mayor's budget on Thursday. 'Since taking office, Gov. Hochul has increased funding for child care subsidies in New York City by 124% while city spending has remained relatively flat for over 25 years,' said Avery Cohen, a spokeswoman for Hochul. 'Our increases in funding have advanced an agenda to make child care more accessible and affordable for families statewide.' 'Even with massive state subsidies, keeping hundreds of thousands of kids enrolled in child care must be a shared responsibility,' she said. There are 130,000 New York children covered by the Child Care Assistance Program. In the years following the pandemic, the city's Administration for Children's Services, which administers the program locally, used an increase in child care funding to significantly expand the vouchers. In 2022, there were about 7,400 children enrolled with a low-income voucher. Today, there are close to 63,000 children receiving assistance, available to families that earn less than 85% of the state's median income. But funding for subsidized care did not keep pace with the uptake in vouchers. Without new funding, ACS previously estimated between 4,000 and 7,000 children could lose vouchers every month, as reimbursement costs rise and more parents on cash assistance — who are first in line for the vouchers — go back to work. The fiscal cliff was first reported by New York Focus in February. Advocates warned that any funding shortfalls could have profound effects on children and their parents, including their ability to work. Pete Nabozny, a policy director at The Children's Agenda, part of the Empire State Campaign for Child Care that pushed for the voucher funding, said he was waiting for more details before he could tell if the investment was really going to help mitigate the harm. 'The prospect of a good chunk of those kids losing care and parents scrambling, wondering how they're going to pay their bills … ,' said Nabozny. 'At scale, it really threatened to be an incredibly disruptive period for families, but also for employers and businesses and our whole economy.' _____
New York Post
01-05-2025
- Business
- New York Post
Adams' $115B ‘Best Budget Ever' is chocked full of freebies fit for an election year — but critics say it doesn't prepare NYC for the worst
The 'Best Budget Ever' may not prepare for the worst. Mayor Eric Adams served up a $115 billion election year spending plan Thursday that's stuffed with voter-pleasing goodies, but that was still slammed by critics for squirreling away relatively little for a rainy day. Hizzoner, who faces an uphill re-election battle, unveiled his 2026 executive budget during a campaign-like event from his alma mater Bayside High School in Queens, rather than City Hall, from which such announcements have traditionally been done. Advertisement 'This is not a budget that favors the few. It is budget for all of you,' Adams said, while flanked by students. 'In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that our fiscal Year 2026 executive budget is the best budget ever.' The budget lavishes $1.4 billion on programs and services that had faced cuts — such as libraries, early child education and the City University of New York. It also launches a universal after-school program and increases education funding by $376 million. Advertisement The spending plan is the largest Adams has proposed since taking office in 2022, with last year's executive budget proposal coming in at $111.6 billion. 'Welcome to the election year!' said veteran campaign strategist Hank Sheinkopf, adding that incumbent mayors usually throw caution to the wind when seeking a second term. 'An election year means living in the moment. Tomorrow, next year is a long time away,' Sheinkopf told The Post. 'It's 'spend whatever we can now.' It's like a bank robbery.' 3 Mayor Eric Adams unveiled his proposed 2026 budget during a campaign-style event Thursday. Stephen Yang Advertisement 3 Adams held the event in Bayside High School, his alma mater. Stephen Yang Critics quickly pounced on Adams seemingly failing to plan for the possibility of tough economic times in the near future, from President Trump's tariffs, a widely anticipated upcoming recession and potential federal funding cuts. 'Despite being flush with cash, Mayor Eric Adams' Fiscal Year 2026 Executive Budget fails to address the dual threats of looming federal budget cuts and a possible recession,' said Andrew Rein, president of the nonpartisan fiscal watchdog group Citizens Budget Commission. 'Instead of wisely adding $1 billion in next year's General Reserve to soften the first blows of federal cuts and $2 billion to the Rainy Day Fund, the budget increases spending to an unaffordable level.' Advertisement Rein said the city should have between $8 and $10 billion in reserves for potential choppy economic waters — a sum that city budget Director Jacques Jiha agreed would be needed, if the Big Apple were in a 'doomsday' scenario. 'We're not looking at doomsday, we're looking at a slowdown in the economy,' he said. 'We believe we have adequate reserves.' Adams' preliminary budget, released in January, was blasted by opponents, including in the progressive City Council, for needlessly cutting services. But his administration maintained those slashes were necessary due to skyrocketing costs from the migrant crisis — which Jiha said has now cost the city more than $7 billion. The mayor had begged Albany lawmakers in February for $1.1 billion to deal with the migrant crisis, contending then that the city needed it in 12 weeks. City Hall officials offered nary a peep about the ask since then — and the supposed shortfall apparently has been covered by savings, with Jiha saying only 'Money is fungible' as an explanation. The budget announced Thursday is Adams' first since the crisis largely subsided, and includes these spending increases and reversed cuts: Advertisement $15.7 million for libraries $96 million restoring CUNY savings $298 million for school nurses An overall near-$18 million increase to the parks budget $92 million in annual funding for citywide 3-K $20 million for new universal after-school programs A $3 billion contribution for the MTA's capital plan 'Adams is using this budget to promote his re-election. He doesn't want to have much of a fight with the council,' said Nicole Gelinas, senior fellow at the conservative think tank the Manhattan Institute. 'It's pre-emptive capitulation to the council,' she added, noting Adams was proposing $1.7 billion more in spending compared to his preliminary budget. 'Adams is blowing out the agency spending,' Gelinas said. '[He] is squandering the last of his budget credibility.' Advertisement Not all programs and departments saw a funding increase. The following budget cuts were included in the plan: $308 million for NYPD $111 million for FDNY $1.57 billion for Department of Social Services $1.19 billion for Health + Hospitals $840 million for Department of Homeless Services $801 million for Administration for Children's Services Talks with City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who is not related to Hizzoner and is running for the Democratic mayoral nomination, will continue until the June 30 deadline to pass the budget. Adams' plan offered plenty of fodder from candidates hoping to boot him from Gracie Mansion, such as City Comptroller Brad Lander — who claimed the mayor was 'failing to protect New Yorkers' by not putting more cash in reserves. Advertisement Former city comptroller and current mayoral candidate Scott Stringer also blasted Adams for failing to prepare for a potential 'extraordinary loss of funding for New York City.' Adrienne Adams offered less gloom and doom — though she still cautioned against getting too comfortable. 'I think that the budget right now is good, but we can never be too certain about what is coming around the corner with this Trump administration,' she said. Adams, who boasted of confronting then-President Joe Biden for migrant funding, hasn't been nearly as vocal about his growing ally Trump. Advertisement 3 Adams brushed off concerns about economic turmoil. Stephen Yang He said he hasn't been in contact with the White House, even as he acknowledged that the current global climate was creating 'uncharted waters.' Adams' top deputy, however, was quick to put a positive spin on the potential financial woes. 'We are best positioned to address with Washington those issues going forward,' said First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro. 'Even asking a question about a doomsday scenario is to be with those pessimistic and political opportunists who don't bet on New York, who are saying, 'The sky is falling.' 'The sky isn't falling.'
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NYC families at risk of losing child care subsidies as Adams, Hochul spar over funding
Mayor Adams' budget plan did not include millions of dollars in funding needed to keep thousands of the city's families on child care vouchers, putting a critical program for working families at risk of being significantly chopped down in scale. Adams had been counting on the state to pony up hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure no parent loses access to their current subsidy. But Gov. Hochul and state lawmakers included only $350 million in the state budget to help avert a looming fiscal shortfall, with Hochul saying the city needed to come up with the rest. Rather than include that money in his proposal Thursday, Adams told reporters at Bayside High School in Queens that he was still pushing to get the money from Albany — an unlikely scenario given a state budget deal announced earlier this week. 'We're still going to fight,' Adams told reporters at Bayside High School in Queens. 'We believe that this was a state program. We were encouraged to enroll as many students as possible.' 'This was their project. They funded it — and to now say, 'We don't want to fund it anymore,' that's wrong,' he said. A final municipal budget will be negotiated with the City Council by the end of next month. Under the terms of the deal in Albany, New York City has to match the state's investment in order to receive the new funds, according to the governor's office. ''With these new resources, we'll offer New York City the opportunity to match our commitment, solving this year's crisis,' Hochul said at the State Capitol on Monday, where she announced the agreement. 'Every family deserves access to high-quality child care.' A report by The New School's Center for New York City Affairs estimated the city needed between $823 to $907 million to prevent families from being kicked out of the initiative, known as the Child Care Assistance Program, and other severe disruptions. In a private briefing on the city budget Thursday morning with Council members, Adams expressed dismay over Albany's arrangement: 'They're making us pick up $300 million of their program,' he said in a recording, obtained by the Daily News. But with budget bills still not printed, sources at the virtual meeting said the mayor urged Council members to keep pushing Albany to provide the extra funding, despite the deal seemingly being in place. Legislative leaders have questioned whether Hochul announced the general agreement too early with other key issues still being hashed out. 'We're still negotiating with the state,' Tiffany Raspberry, Adams' deputy mayor for intergovernmental affairs, told reporters. 'We're still in constant conversations every day. So, we're going to advocate for New Yorkers until the ink is dry on those bills.' The governor's office has defended its position by pointing to the discrepancies between how much the state versus the city contributes to the subsidy program, which is just one facet of the city's complex child care system. Others — such as funding for the city's popular 3-K program or a pilot that extends the hours care is available — were included in the mayor's budget on Thursday. 'Since taking office, Gov. Hochul has increased funding for child care subsidies in New York City by 124% while city spending has remained relatively flat for over 25 years,' said Avery Cohen, a spokeswoman for Hochul. 'Our increases in funding have advanced an agenda to make child care more accessible and affordable for families statewide.' 'Even with massive state subsidies, keeping hundreds of thousands of kids enrolled in child care must be a shared responsibility,' she said. There are 130,000 New York children covered by the Child Care Assistance Program. In the years following the pandemic, the city's Administration for Children's Services, which administers the program locally, used an increase in child care funding to significantly expand the vouchers. In 2022, there were about 7,400 children enrolled with a low-income voucher. Today, there are close to 63,000 children receiving assistance, available to families that earn less than 85% of the state's median income. But funding for subsidized care did not keep pace with the uptake in vouchers. Without new funding, ACS previously estimated between 4,000 and 7,000 children could lose vouchers every month, as reimbursement costs rise and more parents on cash assistance — who are first in line for the vouchers — go back to work. The fiscal cliff was first reported by New York Focus in February. Advocates warned that any funding shortfalls could have profound effects on children and their parents, including their ability to work. Pete Nabozny, a policy director at The Children's Agenda, part of the Empire State Campaign for Child Care that pushed for the voucher funding, said he was waiting for more details before he could tell if the investment was really going to help mitigate the harm. 'The prospect of a good chunk of those kids losing care and parents scrambling, wondering how they're going to pay their bills … ,' said Nabozny. 'At scale, it really threatened to be an incredibly disruptive period for families, but also for employers and businesses and our whole economy.'
