A series of unexpected costs this year, from emergency medical bills to a recent move to Harlem, has put Michelle Paolella and her family in a tough financial spot.
She’s looking to savings from the city’s free preschool program to “catch up and get back on track.”
But Mayor Adams’ recent cuts to 3-K, announced as part of a sweeping plan to offset the growing cost of the migrant crisis, have made Paolella and other parents warn that staying in New York is becoming increasingly difficult for families with children.
She doesn’t want to leave the city, but conceded that she’s discussed it with her husband who works at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
“When we had the second baby, we were planning on having child care payments for the first couple years, then get her into a free 3-K,” said Paolella. She describes scaling back the program as “catastrophic” and “pulling the rug out from under families’ feet.”
As federal stimulus dollars used to expand 3-K dry up with the end of the pandemic, Adams’ cuts to the program have touched off deep concern. There’s no bailout on the horizon.
Adams announced plans last week to claw back $120 million annually from free preschool, a dollar amount that could translate into thousands of fewer spots in the program. Officials have declined to give a precise number, saying planning is ongoing with the Education Department.
The administration points to 37,000 empty seats in preschool classrooms, while other harrowing cuts will reduce garbage baskets across the city and close most public libraries on Sundays. Cutting vacancies, they argue, is less painful in comparison.
“There is a misalignment of the supply and demand,” the mayor’s budget director Jacques Jiha told reporters Tuesday. “We built up the supply without the demand.”
“You have to look at this in the context of the choices that we have to make,” he said.
But the alleged lack of demand has repeatedly been called into question.
Before the latest round of cuts, the consulting firm Accenture forecasted enrollment at standard 3-K programs would increase up to 18%. Other year-round programs that offer extended hours were also expected to marginally grow.
“It’s baffling that he [the mayor] feels like he can do this,” said Rebecca Bailin, founding executive director of New Yorkers United for Child Care, a new campaign that launched just days after Adams’ most recent cuts. “It doesn’t matter if you’re the lowest income New Yorker or upper middle class — you are counting on pre-K and 3-K.”
New Yorkers United for Child Care is circulating a petition that asks Adams “not to cut this crucial lifeline,” as New Yorkers are increasingly finding it harder to raise a family in the city. The group counts former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s deputy of early childhood education Josh Wallack on its advisory board and garnered the attention of other staff who left the division after the Adams administration took over.
“As working and middle class families are leaving New York City due to the cost of child care, the City should be focusing on solutions that make New York City affordable and keep families here,” it reads.
Roughly 400 people had signed onto the appeal as of Wednesday afternoon, with New Yorkers United for Child Care planning to increase that number with in-person petitioning after Thanksgiving.
If not a lack of demand, advocates and the administration agree that at least part of the problem is a mismatch between the programs available and parent preferences. While the majority of applicants to 3-K received an offer for this fall, nearly 1 in 5 families did not get any of their top few choices, education data show.
City officials told reporters they’re overhauling their early childhood offerings and have adjusted just a fraction of the unused program availability: 7,000 seats.
Other vacant seats, advocates charge, could be filled by better outreach so families know about free child care options, especially in low-income neighborhoods where empty seats have historically been more widespread. Last fall, many of the open spots were concentrated in Highbridge and Morrisania in the Bronx, compared to lengthy wait lists in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village and SoHo.
Cutbacks to the program would also save the city from finding a permanent funding source for 3-K after pandemic aid expires — plans officials have yet to publicly disclose.
“Number one, this is temporary money that the previous administration knew [and] used for a permanent program,” Adams told reporters Tuesday.
None of that is much consolation to Allison Lew, who has tried everything to get affordable child care for her 2-year-old son in New York City. She relied on family for a while and then commuted up to two hours daily to a daycare that charged $3,000 per month.
Eventually, she found a program she loves close to home in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Food is included for about half the price of their old daycare, and the staff has an app to send pictures and updates throughout the day. Best of all: they offer free preschool when her son turns 3.
Lew registered six months in advance to get a seat. She’s been out of work since the summer, but continues paying for child care to hold the spot, at the expense of buying health insurance.
She wants to raise a family here, with the city’s richness, diverse population and access to museums.
But she worries about what she can afford.
“We want to be able to retire one day and have health insurance,” said Lew. “So it’s just like for how long can we sustain this fragile set up that we have here? I’m not sure.”
