by Pete Nabozny, Director of Policy, The Children’s Agenda

Governor Andrew Cuomo released his 2022 Executive Budget on January 19^th.  The Children’s Agenda has conducted an initial review of the proposed budget, as we work with partners around the state, including our local legislative delegation, to ensure that children and families get the support they need to thrive. The COVID-19 pandemic caused great harm to many families in New York State –from disease, social isolation, economic loss, and other factors.  Lawmakers need to ensure that New York’s budget prioritizes children, especially the most vulnerable, to help recover from the trauma of the past year.

While The Children’s Agenda monitors many issues affecting children, we have identified 2021 state legislative priorities in four major areas: Child Care, Developmental Services, P-12 Education, and Child Poverty.  The Governor’s actions related to those items in the 2021 state budget are below:

Child Care:

• Enact Employer Child Care Credits – This business tax credit is intended to create an incentive for employers to provide needed child care to their employees. The Governor’s proposal would enhance the Employee Provided Child Care Credit by doubling the amount an employer can receive for qualified child care expenditures and increase the per taxpayer cap from $150,000 to $500,000 per year.
• Invest $40 million in unspent federal funds from prior years to lower parent co-pays to 20% of a family’s income above the poverty level.
• Invest $6 million for start-up grants to create programs in child care deserts and wage supports for programs located in existing child care deserts.
• Reduce certain unnecessary regulatory or administrative burdens on child care providers.

Developmental Services:

• Allow Early Intervention telehealth provisions created under the COVID-19 public health emergency to remain after the state of emergency is lifted. Telehealth would continue if determined by a child’s Individualized Family Service Plan.
• Prohibit the use of back-to-back sessions of Early Intervention extended sessions on the same day, saving $9.8 million.
• No major recommendations for the Preschool Special Education system.

P-12 Education:

• Reduce state funding of schools by $606.7 million, or 2.1% of prior year levels.
• Use an additional $2.7 billion in federal funding to offset state cuts and increase overall spending by 7.1%.
• Maintain $850 million in state spending on Pre-K, including $36.2 million to the Rochester City School District.

Child Poverty:

• The Governor’s proposed Executive Budget did not mention or propose a plan to reduce child poverty by 50% over the next decade.

The Children’s Agenda’s View:

The 2021-22 New York State proposed Executive Budget is highly dependent on additional relief from the federal government, and only contains modest new revenue to reduce the state’s daunting budget deficit.  And while it does contain several promising proposals, especially the effort to reduce child care parent co-pays, it falls short of addressing the enormous needs of New York’s children.  We look forward to working with our legislative delegation to strengthen the 2021-22 budget for children and families throughout New York State, especially here in Monroe County.