TESTIMONY
Testimony: Ira Yankwitt, Executive Director, Literacy Assistance Center, Addresses RFP Concerns
1:29:21
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172 sec
Ira Yankwitt speaks before the Committee on Children and Youth, highlighting concerns with the Department of Youth & Community Development's current RFP for adult literacy programs. He details the risk it poses to 70% of existing literacy providers due to a two-tier funding competition. Anquette praises the council's efforts to urge revision and points out the irony in reduced service capacity despite higher future budget allocations. He offers potential solutions and urges immediate action to address funding and RFP structural issues.
Speaker 9
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Good morning, Chair of Stevens.
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My name is Irene Anquette, and I'm the executive director of the Literacy Assistance Center.
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A forty one year old nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening and expanding the adult education system and to advancing adult literacy as a foundation for equal opportunity in social justice.
1:29:36
As you know and as you've just been discussing, KYCD currently has an open RFP that will fund community based organizations to lead adult basic education high school equivalency, and English for speakers of other language programs for the next 3 to 6 years.
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CYCD has structured this RFP to prioritize residents of the highest poverty, lowest edgy educational attainment, most limited English proficient neighborhoods in the city.
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We unequivocally support this goal.
1:30:00
Unfortunately, The way NYPD has structured the RFP through a 2 tier funding competition could effectively render up to 70% of the current community based adult literacy providers noncompetitive, forcing them to close their classes and displace thousands of the very students that aycd is aiming to serve.
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We are very grateful to you, council member Stevens, as well as to council members 1 and Alvelyse, and the 38 other council members who signed on to your letter urging aycd to revise this counterproductive competition model and to expand the proposal deadline.
1:30:31
The irony is that while aycd wants to address towards with the highest needs, the $11,850,000 in funding in this RFP is $5,000,000 less than the $16,830,000 in current administration side funding for d y c d adult literacy contracts in FY24.
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This means that this RFP will serve just over 91100 students annually, a significant decrease from the 16,000 that NYPD just reported.
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And less than one half of 1 percent of the 2,200,000 adult New Yorkers in need.
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At the same time, the mayor's preliminary budget for FY 25 includes $21,700,000 for DYCD adult literacy, nearly $10,000,000 or nearly 85%, more than what is currently included in the RFP.
1:31:16
If this additional funding could get baselined and included in the RFP, dycd could do some combination of the following three things.
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First, it could increase the per student funding rate, which would make it more realistic for smaller organizations, those that don't have additional sources of revenue to supplement the deal ICD funding, to apply under this RFP and to be able to provide more comprehensive services.
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2nd, it could increase the number of neighborhood tabulation areas designated for funding and increase the number of students served through this RFP.
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And third, it could create a second non NTA based competition for providers who wish to run Burrow Wide and or citywide programs and increase the number of students served through this RFP.
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With the March 20th deadline for organizations to submit proposals fast approaching, we urge the committee to get clarity on the funding and push for a base lining of the full $21,700,000 as well as to continue to push to fix the competition model and extend the deadline.
1:32:11
Further.
1:32:12
Thank you for your attention.