Another round of budget cuts to NYC education
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Loading... - Grant Berger
- 02 Mar 2023
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The city is once again grappling with proposed $351 million cuts to early education and a severe pay backlog for early childhood providers, mirroring last year’s intense budgeting season. It’s especially disheartening since Mayor Eric Adams had announced so many investments into childcare and education in 2022.
“Ultimately, all of this is hurting our children, their families, and hardworking early childhood providers. This is particularly concerning for the city’s low income residents and communities of color who desperately need more extended day and year seats,” said Councilmember and Education Chair Rita Joseph. “We need to stay on top of this and ensure that this does not happen again.”
On Feb 15, Joseph led an oversight hearing on the Department of Education’s (DOE) issues funding universal pre-K and 3-Kindergarten, and millions in delayed reimbursements to early childhood providers. Joseph said that many providers have permanently shut down as a result.
The current budget for early childhood education is $2.2 billion, and there are more than 140,000 children at the pre-K to 3-K level, according to the DOE. Still, there’s under enrollment across the city of about 40,000 seats. The DOE largely blamed the backlog in payments on invoice filing issues, a flawed payment system, and too many similar education seats in one location.
“That’s not to say everything is perfect. It is not. You can absolutely find providers that are waiting longer, we have to do better, but what this represents is real improvement,” said First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg.
The DOE testified that there were nearly 4,000 invoices predating Adams’ administration that had not been completed, indicating a “destabilized” sector pre-pandemic. The DOE said they’ve submitted at least 3,800 back invoices from the previous fiscal year, resulting in over $122 million in payments. For fiscal year 2023, the DOE anticipates paying out $1.2 billion to early childhood providers. So far this year they’ve received over 2,000 invoices and paid out about $162 million, claiming the average payment was doled out in 17 days. Read More…
