For Immediate Release
City agrees to long-overdue raise for child care providers
May 14, 2009 10:44 AM
The city Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) announced on May 13 that after more than a year and a half of refusing to comply with federal regulations and state mandates, the city has agreed to pay the current market rate to New York City’s 28,000 home day care providers represented by the UFT. The agreement calls for the city to pay the higher rate retroactively to October 2007. The ACS went on to say that funding the pay raise will mean the agency will have to reduce the number of day care slots for some categories of the least needy families.
UFT President Randi Weingarten responded to the announcement with the following statement:
We are very pleased that the city Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) has finally agreed to pay New York City’s home day care providers the market rate that providers in the rest of the state have earned since October of 2007. This is a hard-fought victory for the city’s 28,000 providers represented by the United Federation of Teachers because, like everyone else hurt by America’s biggest recession since the Great Depression, our providers — who are among the lowest-paid workers in the region earning less than the federal poverty rate for a family of four — have been struggling. The higher rate and retroactive payments will go a long way to help them continue providing care for more than 85,000 children from low-income families, and that will allow their parents to continue to be part of the city workforce.
This agreement was reached weeks ago but we asked that its announcement be delayed until an implementation process was completed due to the ACS’s spotty track record when it comes to timely payment of providers.
We thank all of the organizations and individuals who steadfastly helped in our fight to secure the market rate for our providers, including Governor Paterson, New York City Comptroller William Thompson Jr., State Senator Adriano Espaillat, City Council Member Bill de Blasio and the state Office of Children and Family Services Commissioner Gladys Carrion.
