Q&A
OMB's explanation of 3K program management and budget constraints
7:06:24
·
3 min
Senior Deputy Director Latonia McKinney provides a detailed explanation of the 3K program management and budget constraints, followed by Council Member Restler's rebuttal and final arguments.
- McKinney explains the ongoing efforts to match 3K demand with available seats and address parents' needs
- She highlights the challenges of managing the $2 billion Early Childhood Education budget within DOE
- Restler argues that the cuts will make it harder for families to find 3K seats in many neighborhoods
- He criticizes the lack of transparency in the analysis and expresses concern about thousands of families being unable to find 3K seats
Latonia McKinney
7:06:24
So council member, good afternoon.
Lincoln Restler
7:06:26
Good afternoon.
Latonia McKinney
7:06:27
We prioritize this.
7:06:29
We've been working on it for several years.
7:06:32
We're still in a state where there are empty seats, and we're trying to match the demand with where the seats are.
7:06:40
So we said, in the exercise that we did between the November plan and the January plan, in looking at DOE's entire budget and identifying savings, we said this is an area of savings until we're able to right size where the seats are and what the demand is.
7:07:01
And so between the January plan and the executive plan, we still have not been able to identify how we'll be able to fill those seats.
7:07:11
So therefore, we're not going to just restore those savings because they're still empty seats.
7:07:19
Right?
7:07:19
And as the budget director said, with all of these fiscal stimulus, cliffs within DOE's budget that we needed to address.
7:07:29
So putting in the $5,000,000, putting in
Gale A. Brewer
7:07:31
the
Latonia McKinney
7:07:32
$15,000,000 last year is all an exercise to try to give parents what they're asking for.
7:07:39
And working with providers to say, can you do extended day?
7:07:43
Because sometimes parents are not taking it because it's not long enough.
7:07:47
We want to get it right with regards to what people are looking for.
7:07:51
And if we have contracts and we have providers that we're paying for seats where they're not children, then it's hard for us to say, you know, we can't do all of these other things.
7:08:04
We're not trying to to take the feet out of the $2,000,000,000 that's in DOE's budget for ECE.
7:08:11
Between PS and OTPS, it's $2,000,000,000 Right?
7:08:14
So the peg was to say, let us figure out what the number is, what the seat type is, and where the location is.
7:08:26
And we wanna work with the council to figure that out.
7:08:29
And in the meantime, we don't want to pay a provider where there's no child, particularly when you have 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars of needs within DOE's budget that we had to find resources for because the stimulus money was going away.
7:08:45
So it's a give and take.
7:08:46
We're constantly talking to, to DOE.
7:08:49
We're we're talking about outreach.
7:08:51
We're talking about, contract evaluations.
7:08:55
Are we, you know, doing what we need to do there?
7:08:59
So it it's an ongoing thing but going from the 35,000 to 23,000, that's progress.
7:09:05
Right?
7:09:06
We're we're happy about that, but we need to put the seats in the right places, and that's taking more time.
Lincoln Restler
7:09:13
I appreciate that there are areas in the city where there is excess seat capacity, but there are more neighborhoods in the city where more families have applied than have been able to access a seat.
7:09:22
So in a majority of neighborhoods in New York City this past school year, we have not been able to successfully enroll those kids into 3 k.
7:09:29
And it doesn't sound like we're doing anything in this budget that's actually gonna help us meet that demand.
7:09:33
In fact, we've cut the program further by an additional $170,000,000 which is only gonna make it harder for those families who are in need to find the early childhood education seat that they that they are looking for.
7:09:44
We have not seen the Accenture report.
7:09:46
We have not seen the underlying analysis that is, for how the DOE and and OMB are gonna fix this.
7:09:53
And we're gonna experience many thousands of families that are unable to find 3 k seats.
7:09:59
And I really do hope that we'll restore this funding to make it easier for them.
Justin Brannan
7:10:04
Hey, we have questions from council member Abreu.
