By Ashley Hupfl | The Daily Gazette, Schenectady
Albany, N.Y. — Gov. Kathy Hochul was in Albany on Wednesday to announce $100 million in funding to increase the number of child care facilities in New York to address a shortage throughout the state.
The funding will be distributed through two new $50 million initiatives to create or expand child care centers and provide business tax credits to eligible businesses that create or expand infant and toddler child care for employees.
Hochul, the state’s first female governor and a mother of two, made the announcement at a child care center at the W. Averell Harriman State Office Building Campus.
“When you see children here. That means the parents are able to be at work and many of the people who work here actually work for the Department of Labor,” the Democrat said. “And so, this gives people that opportunity that is denied to so many other places and I’m proud that we have this in the state of New York, but I also want to make sure that this is expanded.”
The Child Care Capital Program will award grants ranging from $500,000 to $1.5 million to eligible child care providers to expand existing centers or build new ones. Sixty percent of the funding will be allocated for the downstate region, including New York City, Long Island, Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster and Westchester counties. Forty percent will be allocated to the rest of the state.
“The projects have to be shovel ready and operational within six months of completing construction,” Hochul said. “So, all of this is a road map toward a better future for our families and for their children and continues on our $7.6 billion investment overall, which we announced two years ago where we kept child care costs.”
Under the new business tax credit program also announced on Wednesday, businesses in the state must provide new or registered child care facilities for the infants or toddlers of their employees, either directly or through a third-party, and must also limit costs to their employees for child care services.
A state report released in 2021 found decades of treating and funding child care as a private service rather than vital public infrastructure has left the system on the verge of collapse — and the COVID-19 pandemic only made the situation worse. Among its findings, it found the cost of enrollment in child care is too high for most families and can cost a family more than $2,600 a month, or $21,000 annually. It also found the high cost of child care has forced many women to give up their jobs.
“So, as the first mother governor of New York, first woman who ever held this position who has children who knows the challenges of child care, the affordability crisis, even finding enough slots. I know what this can do. It kept me from my career many years ago when I didn’t have any alternatives. And so, this is an issue that I feel deeply about,” Hochul said. “I want to make sure that all families have access to good, high quality, affordable childcare.”
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