Public Employee Press

Shame of the city: Part 2 of a series
Day Care cuts
City turns its back on working families

By JANE LaTOUR


Local 1549 member Stacey Wright struggles to provide quality day care for her daughter Paris, 4. Juggling work, travel time and costs is tough. The recent shutdowns and mergers of public day care centers have made it harder, and now Mayor Bloomberg plans to shutter 16 more centers in 2011.

This devastating blow to Wright and other working parents comes when only 27 percent of children eligible for child care in New York City are being served. Demand is high, yet the cuts are shrinking the system.

Cost breaks budgets

Wright spent three months finding a center with a strong curriculum that would challenge her daughter to her full capabilities. Paris has attended the Village Daycare Center in Jamaica Queens for over three years, but the cost has become prohibitive.

"It's very difficult paying these fees," Wright said. "The amount is almost equivalent to some people's rent." Funding ran out for the voucher program that a union coalition won to help with the costs, which ended Sept. 28. "Now it's almost impossible to find a suitable and affordable daycare center," she said.

A recent survey about the availability of quality, affordable child care ranked New York City next-to-last in the nation. In October, the city's Independent Budget Office documented the rising costs and shrinking funds that face the subsidized child care system.

Squeeze hurts families

During the early 2000s, federal and state funds came in through the Child Care Block Grant, but since 2005 these funds have leveled off and day care has increasingly depended on city funds. If the administration implements all the cuts in the 2011 budget, over 6,600 subsidized child care slots will soon disappear.


On Oct. 27, District Council 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts, DC 1707 Executive Director Raglan George and AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Lee Saunders protested the looming closings at a City Hall press conference. DC 1707 represents most city day care workers.

"We all need to fight this together," Roberts said. Saunders called the cuts "unconscionable" and vowed to fight the shutdowns borough by borough. "We have friends in the City Council who value children and who share our priorities," he said.

Failure to keep promises

The 1996 welfare changes promised support, including child care subsidies, to enable parents to work. But cuts to subsidized child care are taking place nationwide, leaving low-income working families struggling to reconcile the demands of jobs and parenting.

"The shutdowns will make it almost impossible for me to find a new, affordable, quality daycare center for Paris when she starts kindergarten in September, 2011, but I just can't continue to pay the current prices," Wright said.