Testimony of UFT Vice President for Non-DOE Members Anne Goldman before the New York City Council Committee on General Welfare
Good morning Chairman Levin and members of your General Welfare committee. My name is Anne Goldman, and I am the Vice President of Non-DOE Members of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). On behalf of our union’s more than 200,000 members, including 15,000 home-based, family child care providers, I want to thank you for this opportunity to offer testimony on the mayor’s proposed expense budget as it relates to the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS).
I also want to thank you for your strong leadership and advocacy on behalf of the children we care for, especially with respect to their rights to a well-structured early childhood education in a safe and caring environment.
We are grateful for your oversight of the budget process and of the agencies responsible for our children’s education and well-being. Without your scrutiny, we would lack the necessary checks and balances to protect the interests of those in our city who have the smallest voice but the greatest need.
Every fiscal year brings challenges, some fresh and newly introduced — others familiar and ongoing. This year, our providers and families face the ongoing possibility of losing slots for subsidized child care. Plus, a body of unfunded new mandates included in the recently reauthorized federal Child Care and Development Block Grant program relating to new family eligibility requirements, coupled with new health and safety requirements threaten to stretch current inadequate resources to their snapping point.
Subsidized early child care education
Home-based family child care is an essential component of the city’s subsidized child care system, which serves more than 300,000 children. This type of care allows tens of thousands of hard-working, low-income New Yorkers, predominately people of color, to maintain employment or get a job. The high-level care that our members provide gives parents peace of mind. Additionally, and just as important, our children are better prepared to enter school, do well in school as compared to children who do not attend quality early childhood programs and stay in school with more success later in life.
The needs of children and families who qualify for subsidized early child care are extensive and any reduction in services in one area can have a devastating domino effect. Simply put, this is a high needs, vulnerable population. Take nutrition, for example: Our poorest families in New York City often depend upon the meals their children receive in family day care. At a time when we are concerned with the relationship between nutrition and learning, our providers can be an important line of defense against malnutrition. As for health care, the state requires children to receive immunizations against childhood diseases when they attend government-subsidized day care. Cutting the number of seats means more children remain unimmunized and the city’s ability to control and treat infectious diseases is diminished.
And there are some elements that are less tangible, but as crucial to providing this diverse group of children with a safe place for them to grow and prosper. We cannot underestimate the value of a culturally-sensitive care provider who connects with children with disabilities, children from families who are homeless and children who have felt the sting of poverty.
Since 2013, the City Council has provided supplemental funding, in addition to advocating for the maintenance of baseline funding in the ACS budget to enhance child care services. We again look to you to lead in the effort to gain more funding for subsidized child care and for your continued advocacy on behalf of a parent's right to high-quality child care options.
Chair Levin, as the City Council begins its deliberation over the city's proposed fiscal year 2017 Administration for Children’s Services budget, we urge this body to emphasize expanding access to quality child care and relieving the burden of unfunded mandates.
Strengthening early child care services
Competing amidst the complex funding conundrum for early child care services is the city- and statewide push for universal prekindergarten. Prekindergarten serves the greatest percentage of the income-eligible families. Starting with the latter, we currently serve just 27% of income-eligible families in the five boroughs. That is a huge gap — and an uphill battle to fund vouchers for the vast majority of eligible families. Worse, without additional money, the system will be forced to cut the number of child care seats currently funded.
Our union, like the City Council, has championed Mayor Bill de Blasio's universal prekindergarten (UPK) expansion and the state’s support pushed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. As the city continues to build and develop the UPK program, we seek your support to make concurrent investments in home-based child care. In our view, the unintended consequence of emphasizing pre-K over home-based family child care weakens rather than strengthens the services for these children.
We believe that, at a minimum, we need your support for the $190 million that we are seeking from New York State to cover any shortfall and to hold on to the precious slots currently allotted for child care vouchers.
Help mitigate against the burden of unfunded mandates
The UFT naturally supports compliance with the New York State Child Care Plan in its adherence of the new federal mandates under the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) program. But this is all too familiar — where compliance is impossible to implement — unless we add considerable funding. For instance, mandating provider and staff fingerprinting at a potential cost of a $100 processing fee per individual is prohibitive. Plus, the logistics of acquiring the technology and IT systems, hiring and training new inspectors, clearly communicating new mandates to the child care providers, passing the legislation required to change current state laws to achieve compliance, and promulgating the regulations required for implementation in a timely and effective manner require adding tremendous resources to the child care system both in New York City and statewide.
It is absolutely unrealistic to expect that a statutory and regulatory shift of this magnitude will be quickly implemented and low cost. Something will suffer; the quality or the compliance, or the timeframe for implementation. Common sense and experience tells us: infrastructure requires support.
Effectively, the federal government has handed our child care system a bill for tens, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars in unfunded mandates. The last time this happened — can anyone here say Common Core without cringing? — the state wasted hundreds of millions of dollars on failed policies in poorly implemented educational programs.
The downside for a system faced with fewer state-licensed providers and lost child care slots is immediately evident. These kinds of obstacles — when not mitigated by proper training, implementation and the roll-out process — may drive providers underground. Without the government’s help, these parents cannot afford professional day care. So who will care for these children? Will substitute care providers meet state standards? Will they provide a structured curriculum and teach kids social skills, or feed them nutritious meals?
The UFT strongly objects to any attempt by the state or city to shift any of these new costs on the shoulders of the providers. Furthermore, not only should the costs not be shouldered by our providers, they deserve a raise.
The UFT has worked with its national affiliate, the American Federation of Teachers, to comment on the proposed federal rules associated with the reauthorized statute. Our comments called for transparency and the opportunity for stakeholder input throughout the implementation process. Additionally, we expressed our strong opposition to allowing states to shift the cost of the mandates to providers or reduce the number of families served to implement the mandates. We will continue to work with our state and national partners to ensure that the voices of our providers are heard by those making critical decisions about the viability of their livelihood.
We want to do this right the first time and avoid a rush job that would require remediation. We seek your support to go about this in a thoughtful and deliberate manner and avoid a foreseeable burdensome situation where no one wins and children lose.
City Council support makes a difference
We are excited to have an administration that engages all stakeholders in making our city’s child care system work better. Strengthening early child care options and expanding access for families seeking educationally sound, subsidized care is smart policy for our city’s future. We know that investing now in our city’s children and families will reap long-term economic and social benefits.
As educators and care providers, we know that those early years of cognitive, social, and emotional development are critical to success in school and life. The evidence is also clear that the cost of remedial education in elementary schools and the higher grades is much more costly than providing early childhood education. Studies have also shown that early childhood education has a direct impact on keeping our young people out of the court system.
Our union recognizes that the task before you is not an easy one. The needs are great and the resources are not infinite. Once again, I express our gratitude to the City Council for your strong leadership and advocacy on behalf of our children, especially with respect to their rights to a high-quality education in a safe and caring environment.
In closing, affordable child care for all eligible working families is a realistic goal. The immediate and long-term benefits for children and working parents are clear. We believe that together we can ensure a responsible, effective rollout of the new federal mandates while maintaining, and perhaps even increasing, the number of families who benefit from subsidized family day care.
Thank you for allowing us to testify today and I would be happy to answer any questions you may have.