ALBION, N.Y. – News10NBC is investigating a growing child care crisis. The state Office of Children and Family Services are sending letters to families saying their child care benefit is “discontinued due to lack of funds.”
Today we learned the state was warned about this for months.
“We were alerted by some counties in the state back in April and May that this issue was on the horizon,” said Sarah Clark, New York State Assemblywoman from Fairport.
Amber Miller of Albion, Orleans County is bracing for a letter that will cut her child care benefit. She’ll go from paying four dollars a week to 500-dollars a week.
We just learned the emergency money to protect her and other families still hasn’t been used.
Berkeley Brean, News10NBC: “What’s that going to mean for your family?”
Amber Miller, mother of two: “A lot. It means that we won’t have anything.”
“I would go from paying $4 a week for daycare to $500 a week for daycare. Which means if I did that and my kids still went to daycare I would have $200 to live off of for the month,” Miller said.
A map shows 12 counties cutting the benefit, almost all rural, including Wyoming, Genesee and Orleans. Together the three local counties have up to 100 families on a waiting list.
A new list shows four more counties that told the state they might have to cut the benefit in the next month: Clinton, Duchess, Erie and Schenectady.
In the survey by the state, 21 of the 62 counties in New York said they have no new child care benefit openings.
“It is a big challenge, something we’re very aware of and something we’re desperately looking to fix,” Assemblywoman Clark said.
In the spring, Governor Hochul announced “historic” funding for child care with $50 million going to counties to shore up the benefit that is now getting cut. However, that money hasn’t been used yet.
“What we’re realizing is that the way the regulations came out based on the budget language in statute is that counties have to literally deplete every amount of their money to get access to this extra $50 million dollars,” Clark explained. “And the counties don’t want to run out of money.”
Berkeley Brean: “There could be other families getting these letters right now that their benefit is cancelled. So is there a solution the state could employ right now, today?”
Sarah Clark: “I think if we figure out a way on this language around getting the $50 million out I think we solve the problem today.”
There are other factors. Families used to have to pay 10 to 35% of their income to the childcare. The state benefit paid the difference. After COVID, the state reduced that to 1%. The state raised eligibility. Now a family of two with a household income of $80,000 is eligible and at 1%, that family pays just $800 a year, or $15 a week. The benefit pays the rest. The state also requires the counties to pay for up to 80 absences a year.
Brean: “Is an option on the table going back to the model where families paid 10% to 35% share as opposed to 1%?”
Clark: “I think the answer is somewhere in the middle. I think we do need to give counties a little more flexibility.”
When all the other counties in the Finger Lakes, including Monroe, Ontario, Livingston and Wayne, were surveyed by the state in August, none of them said they would cut the child care benefit in the next month but they are watching the money closely.
Orleans County says it got an additional $250,000 in federal money to help pay for child care over the last year but its child care costs just for the month of July was almost $140,000.
News10NBC contacted the Office of Children and Family Services on Monday. OCFS still has not provided a statement.
The governor’s office did not response to an email today.
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