NY child care voucher shortages force closures, long waitlists

New York's child care voucher crisis leaves thousands stranded on waitlists

More than half of New York counties have stopped enrolling eligible families in the state's child care voucher program as of mid-March amid a funding crisis that has persisted for over a year, new data shows.

Thirty-five counties and New York City have had to close applications for the program, which subsidizes nearly the entire cost of private child care for low- and middle-income families. Twenty-one of them are keeping waitlists; New York City's alone has grown to over 17,000 families - a more than 1,000 percent increase since last July.

And as Governor Kathy Hochul and state legislators enter final budget negotiations, local officials and advocates say that the proposals on the table - to add $1.2 billion to help counties reduce waitlists and resume enrollment - will not come close to clearing the growing statewide backlog.

The decades-old program, which is funded mostly by the federal and state governments, was originally intended to help welfare recipients afford child care so they could enter the workforce. But as the cost of child care has skyrocketed, eligibility and demand have expanded, and state funds haven't kept pace.

The new data makes clear that the funding shortfall at the center of last year's budget negotiations, which New York Focus first reported, has only worsened. Sixteen counties' voucher applications have remained closed since at least July, when the state Office of Children and Family Services first started publishing the data.

All counties have maintained enrollment for families who are required to receive it under state law, including those who receive other forms of cash assistance, though some county officials have warned those funds are running low, too.

If the final budget doesn't include more funding than what lawmakers proposed earlier this year, New York City's waitlist could surpass 30,000 by this time next year, warns Pete Nabozny, policy director of the advocacy group the Children's Agenda. The outlook in the rest of the state is unclear, but officials from over a dozen counties expressed similar concerns about their ability to meet future demand even with increased funding.

Advocates and officials say the gaps highlight a key tension in the governor's widely lauded massive child care investment plan and her rhetoric around it; in January, she said she "placed the state on a path to universal child care" last year, and that the plan is a "roadmap" to get there. The voucher funding shortfall has already led one county to withdraw from the governor's signature universal child care pilot for children aged 3 and younger.

"It's difficult to say we're [on the path to] achieving universal child care in New York, and we're expanding care with these new programs, while thousands of low-income children sit on waitlists," said Nabozny.

Demand for the Child Care Assistance Program has skyrocketed after the state expanded eligibility a few years ago, including by raising the income threshold. Today, the governor's office reports that more than half of young children in New York are eligible for the program. At the same time, a series of state-level reforms has made the program more expensive to administer.

The funding shortfall reached its peak last year. The final state budget added $400 million for vouchers after reports New York City would soon have to kick thousands of families out of the program. But by July, 21 counties had closed enrollment to new families except for mandatory cases. Three of those counties have since reopened enrollment, and two others briefly resumed enrollment for a couple of months until closing them again.

In Greene County, which hasn't been enrolling new applicants for the past seven months, funding for even mandatory cases is running low. The county Social Services Commissioner Kira Pospesel said she expects remaining funds to cover a couple of weeks into April.

At that point, for the first time in the program's history, Pospesel said, the county will have to use local money to cover mandatory cases because of rising costs.

"The state pushed to increase enrollment, but did not provide the dollars to pay for it," she said. "The lack of funding is closing child care providers down and causing clients to lose their jobs and their housing."

Hochul's $1.2 billion funding boost, which the legislature backs, would add around $570 million in regular funding for the program, though counties will not know exactly how much they'll receive until the fall. It also includes some short-term relief for localities that run out of that money: $475 million for New York City over the next two years, and $155 million for the rest of the state this fiscal year.

Local officials welcomed the proposed funding, but several told New York Focus it likely won't be enough to fully eliminate waitlists or reopen enrollment. For instance, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said that even with more than $14 million in supplemental funding under the proposal, Erie County's program would still face an $8.5 million deficit. There are over 300 families currently on the waitlist there.

The county was selected for a pilot Hochul proposed in January to provide affordable full-day child care to children under the age of 3. In a February 10 letter to the legislature, Poloncarz said his administration opted out because it would have required a $2 million local contribution that did not seem "fiscally prudent" given the voucher shortfall. (Three other selected counties are planning to participate in the pilot.)

Poloncarz has gotten heat for the decision, he wrote in the letter. "I am equally frustrated that I and a growing number of county leaders across the state are not being provided with sufficient resources to accomplish the policy goals passed by your honorable body," he wrote.

DSS commissioners across the state told New York Focus that funding gaps, uncertainty about future allocations, and a lack of local control over the program have led to disruptions for families.

Essex County is among eight counties that have not enrolled eligible families in the child care voucher program for an entire year, according to OCFS data. The county's commissioner for social services, Angie Allen, said regulatory changes have "impacted our ability to be fiscally responsible to the taxpayers and provide the subsidy at the same time."

Orleans County Commissioner Mary Grace Nenni agreed, noting that the western New York county exhausted its funding even after implementing a waitlist for new applications and recertifications and is now projected to run approximately $60,000 over budget.

"If the state does not want any waiting lists, they need to move away from capped allocations and provide unlimited reimbursement," Nenni said over email.

In New York City, where the voucher waitlist has grown by about 1,500 families per month, Nabozny said the proposed funding would help provide vouchers to more families guaranteed coverage under state law, but it would not be sufficient to reduce the waitlist. It would take an additional $1.2 billion to clear the waitlist and meet projected demand over the next year, according to a recent analysis by Nabozny and Lauren Melodia, economic policy director at the Center for New York City Affairs.

OCFS spokesperson Daniel Marans did not comment on the status of waitlists or funding gaps, instead stating that it is at the counties' discretion to close enrollment or maintain a waitlist based on the funds they have available. He described Hochul's support for child care subsidies as "nothing short of historic," highlighting that enrollment in the program has increased by 167 percent, and funding by 164 percent, since she took office.

Once the budget is passed, he said the agency will work closely with county officials to ensure state funding "is maximized to reach as many eligible New York families as possible."

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has been a vocal supporter of Hochul's child care package, and has appeared alongside her at public events advertising it. But City Hall is taking a different tack on voucher funding. Jenna Lyle, a spokesperson for the mayor's office, said the city is grateful for the governor's commitment to funding the voucher program, but agreed that the "funding alone will not clear the waitlist, and it will not meet the scale of need."

"Universal child care - care that is not means-tested, care that every family can rely on - is not a distant aspiration," Lyle said. "It is an urgent necessity, and it must remain a top priority for this administration."

The Empire State Campaign for Child Care, a statewide coalition of parents, early childhood educators and advocates fighting for high-quality universal child care, is pressing the state to add $1.2 billion for vouchers in the final budget to address the city's waitlist, in line with Nabozny and Melodia's analysis.

Child care advocates are also supporting two additional voucher-related proposals from the Assembly: one allowing counties to access supplemental funding immediately after the budget is passed, rather than waiting until they run out of funds, and another that eliminates minimum wage requirements for voucher recipients.

The budget negotiations come amid uncertainty surrounding federal child care and family assistance funding. In January, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from freezing billions in federal funding for child care and social services in five Democratic-led states, including New York.

Federal dollars accounted for nearly three-quarters of voucher program spending from April 2013 through March 2024, according to a state comptroller report. Potential interruptions to those funds make additional state support even more urgent, according to Dede Hill, vice president of policy at the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy.

"That would be a devastating blow," Hill said.