What Cuts Will Cost: Children's Learning, Parents' Work

Since February, when the mayor issued his preliminary budget, the Administration for Children's Services (ACS) has been busy notifying over 11,000 parents of their plans to scale back a program that has allowed them to work or remain in agency-approved training while the city paid someone else to watch their kids.

Parents have until then to find alternative arrangements for their children, ACS spokeswoman Elysia Carnavale-Murphy says.

Under the sweeping plan, an estimated 600 teachers and teacher-aides will also be laid off, as at least 197 classrooms shut down.

Sixteen daycare centers are also facing the chopping block or have been axed in recent months, according to Arlene Cauley, director of the Sheldon Weaver Day Care Center in Far Rockaway, Queens.

Carnavale-Murphy denies that any centers will be forced to shut because of the cuts proposed in February. But, she adds in a statement to City Limits, "there are several programs that are scheduled to close by June of this year as a result of a budget reduction initiative proposed in last year's budget process."

City cites higher costs

Carnavale-Murphy says that sharp reductions in state and federal aid in recent years, as well as increasing costs at participating centers, were driving the childcare agency to make difficult decisions.

The coming fiscal year will see a $29 million decrease in federal stimulus funds, she says. Increasing insurance costs for unionized teachers and more children entering the system were also factors in the agency's decision.

"The city must take action to address the more than $90 million budget shortfall caused by rising costs as state and federal resources have not kept pace. We are dealing with this by ensuring that our limited resources are used to support the families who need it the most," she adds.

In the interim, the agency will be helping families affected to find alternative programs, she says, including the federal Head Start or the city's Out-of-School Time.

However, that plan has many childcare advocates and families fuming. Gregory Brender, a policy analyst at United Neighborhood Houses, warns that neither program holds out much promise of an affordable alternative come September.

"Head Start has strict income guidelines.  Most families must live below 130 percent of federal poverty guidelines.  Furthermore, eligible families are not guaranteed Head Start slots.  They would need to find a vacant seat," he says.

Meanwhile, the transfer of almost 10,000 school-age children from ACS-subsidized care to the Out of School Time after-school program (OST), he says, will "overwhelm" OST, which itself is facing a loss of 8,800 slots being cut to save the city over $13.2 million.

"If these cuts are enacted, the school-aged children terminated from child care could take up as much as 46 percent of slots, leaving less than 13,000 slots for all the other school-aged children," he said.

He calls the cuts a "huge burden on low-income working families," especially if they quit their jobs without an affordable alternative.