Despite stabilization grants the NYS child care industry is still unstable

The joint legislative hearing for human services dissected progress and budgets of New York State social programs from offices that included the Office of Children and Family Services and the Office of Temporary & Disability Assistance.

Testimony from Acting OCFS Commissioner Suzanne Miles-Gustave Esq., highlighted an unprecedented four year commitment to child care assistance of $7.6 billion, an increase in State Median Income for child care assistance eligibility to 85%, and success from the child care deserts initiative. However, seemingly more hopeful data points on child care services in New York State weren’t enough to assuage Sen. Jabari Brisport’s (D- District 25) inquiries about – what he described as – NYS’ collapsing child care industry.

“The childcare industry has been on collapse for the past decade – longer – which has only picked up and accelerated and the governor has pursued a strategy of one-time cash infusions called stabilization grants which are not working.”

During 2021 Child Care Stabilization 1.0 awarded $900 million to 15,000 child care providers and during 2022 Child Care Stabilization 2.0. Stabilization awarded over $200 million to over 12,000 child care providers for workforce support.

Despite OCFS’ grant opportunities, Sen. Brisport says, “we lost about 10,000 providers in the first two years of the pandemic and then another 10,000 just in the past six months. The collapse is accelerating.” 

“What we need to do rather than the governor’s one-time infusions is something more stable that actually raises wages for providers in the area,” the senator continued.

The OCFS maintains that Stabilization 2.0 stimmed from the success of Stabilization 1.0 but in a point blank question from Sen. Brisport Commissioner Miles-Gustave said the child care industry is not stable.

“Would you say the childcare sector is stable now,” the senator questioned after announcing that he asked the same question during last year’s human services budget hearing.

“No, it’s not stable now,” the acting commissioner answered. “I think this governor’s budget proposed that additional $389 million as a round three for stabilization to help try to stabilize it.”

Stabilization funds were secured through OCFS’ pandemic funding but Commissioner Miles-Gustave recognizes that industry issues were exacerbated by the pandemic and there’s still work to be done despite Child Care Stabilization grants.

“I think the pandemic put a spotlight on this incredible infrastructure priority no one else really knew about or cared about until after the pandemic.” 

“We’re working towards, as you know, the Child Care Availability Task Force that has been reimagined by Governor Hochul” the commissioner replied to Sen. Brisport. 

“We’ll come together shortly and one of their tasks is to look at the impact of the pandemic on the child care industry, including the workforce crisis.”