New York, NY – City Council to Mayor: Save child-Care Slots

New York, NY – All but six of the 51 members of the New York City Council have signed a letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg urging him to call off a plan that would eliminate child-care subsidies for more than 16,000 low-income children.

“These cuts will force many low-income working parents to make gut-wrenching choices, such as weighing whether they can afford to continue to work without subsidized child care or whether a non-licensed provider is a safe option for their children,” said the letter provided to The Associated Press on Friday by the office of Annabel Palma, chairwoman of the council’s Committee on General Welfare.

The missive comes a week before the mayor issues his final budget proposal and launches a last round of negotiations with the City Council. Both sides must agree on a balanced budget for next fiscal year by June.

City Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras indicated the issue could be a sticking point in budget negotiations.

“This is a priority fight for us,” she said, adding that agreeing to the child-care cuts “just wouldn’t be responsible.”

The mayor’s preliminary budget would eliminate 16,462 child-care slots that together cost more than $90 million. The mayor’s plan also called for the loss of more than 6,000 public school teachers from the city’s classrooms and a number of other reductions that Bloomberg has argued are necessary because of state and federal cuts.

“Unfortunately, the billions of dollars that have been cut from Albany and Washington are having very real world consequences here in the city,” said Bloomberg spokeswoman Jessica Scaperotti.

A spokesman for the federal Administration for Children and Families didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.

The cuts would “have a dire effect on thousands of working families in our city, forcing parents to scramble for alternative care and preventing tens of thousands of children from getting the early education opportunities they deserve,” Palma said in a statement.

Because the city is required by federal law to provide child care to parents on public assistance and those transitioning from welfare to the workforce, the proposed cuts would hit parents who have jobs but have incomes of less than twice the federal poverty level.

About 100,000 city children are currently served by the subsidies. The advocacy group Citizens’ Committee for Children says that as of 2009, another 180,000 city children under the age of 5 lived in families that qualified for the program but did not receive care.