More Niagara County families could soon receive help paying for child care after New York boosted funding for its Child Care Assistance Program by more than $1 billion as part of the state budget.
As part of this year’s State Budget passed in May, the state is increasing its various child care program funding from $1.7 billion to $4.5 billion, helping further pave the way for universal child care in New York.
“There’s a multi-pronged approach here,” said Office of Children and Family Services Commissioner DaMia Harris-Madden. “We’re going to invest on the school side with pre-kindergarten services, and then for the daycare providers and the home-based providers, they access the (Child Care Assistance Program).”
The CCAP saw its funding increased to $3 billion, a $1.2 billion increase from the previous fiscal year, to create more child care seats. That is made up of $2.4 billion in base funding and the rest for supplemental funding to help backfill counties that exceed their allocations.
For Niagara County, the amount it receives has been set at $14.3 million, a $3 million increase, compared to Erie County, which had its amount raised to $83.6 million, a $17.6 million increase. Who is eligible for CCAP has also been raised to 85% of a median household’s income, with averages to a family of four making $116,000 per year.
The supplemental funding for areas outside of New York City is set at $155 million, with $20 million of that designated for Western New York, and nearly $2.5 million for Niagara County.
The majority of CCAP enrollees can see their child care costs capped at around $15 per week.
The number of Niagara County kids on some kind of child care subsidy has increased nearly sixfold since Gov. Kathy Hochul took office in 2021, with 1,084 children as of last year. That was supported with more than $9 million of state funding, also a 289% increase from 2021, with local funding at $364,420.
Currently, there are 313 Niagara County families on the child care waitlist. County Social Services Commissioner Meghan Lutz said they are evaluating how many families this additional funding could accommodate, noting that it depends on the number of children and their ages.
Erie, Genesee, and Livingston counties have already started enrolling people off of their waitlists.
Funding for most of these services is distributed through county social services departments. Pre-kindergarten programs run by a public school district would get their funding through the district.
Harris-Madden, the Office of Children and Family Services commissioner, said these measures are helping state families present an economic opportunity for parents, who may not have plans for accommodating their children.
“So many parents have had to opt into staying home because they cannot go to work,” Harris-Madden said, noting this is one way of getting more people to contribute to the economy. “Then you have this need for a more skilled workforce, so now we’re able to hire more people into the system.”
Other state allocations towards child care programs include $38.6 billion for school aid, which includes $27.4 billion for foundation aid and $563 million for universal pre-K aid, $100 million in Learning and Enrichment After-School Program Supports grants for kids in high need areas, including $2 million for eight such sites in Niagara County, $100 million in grants for child care infrastructure, and expanding the state Child Tax Credit so that more than 1.6 million families can claim up to $330 for kids ages 4 to 16 and $1,000 for kids under age 4.