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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Caitlyn Passaretti, Senior Advocacy Associate at Citizens Committee for Children of New York
5:39:58
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139 sec
Caitlyn Passaretti from the Citizens Committee for Children of New York addressed the needs for after-school programs, runaway and homeless youth services, and childcare vouchers. She urged for increased funding and rate adjustments to address staffing crises and ensure robust support for these vital programs.
- Advocated for increasing base rates for Compass Elementary and Sonic middle school programs
- Called for updating rates for runaway and homeless youth providers and restoring funding for peer navigators and housing specialists
- Urged city leaders to invest at least $350 million in the child care assistance program to maximize state and federal funding
Caitlyn Passaretti
5:39:58
Hello.
5:39:59
Thank you chair Stevens and the children youth community and chair Brannan and the finance committee.
5:40:03
My name is Caitlin Passerette.
5:40:05
I'm a senior advocacy associate at Citizens Committee for Children of New York and I'm here to address the needs for after school, runaway and homeless youth, alternatives to incarceration and childcare vouchers.
5:40:16
After school programs provide vital supports and care for our city's young people.
5:40:19
We heard it from a host of them today and at the rally this morning.
5:40:23
We appreciate the mayor's announcement and the future investment to support these programs.
5:40:27
However, we remain gravely concerned that the funding does not address the staffing crisis after school programs are experiencing due to low wages.
5:40:35
To ensure programs are robustly funded and providers are paid what they are owed, we must adjust the rates for Compass and Sonic.
5:40:42
We urge the city to increase the base rates for Compass Elementary to 4,900 and for Sonic middle school programs to 4,150 this year with the end goal of fully funding elementary and middle school programs at a new procurement in FY '20 '7.
5:40:56
Regarding runaway and homeless youth which was not included in the executive budget, we are still grateful for those 100 beds funded in the last year's budget, but we need the city to increase the rates for providers, which have not been updated since 2017, to $70,000 per bed.
5:41:11
We also heard from youth speaking on this issue earlier today as well.
5:41:14
This investment will provide safe temporary housing for youth who otherwise would be without a stable option.
5:41:20
We also urge you to restore and baseline the 1,620,000.00 for peer navigators and 1,500,000.0 for the housing specialists.
5:41:26
Having a trusted support system for young people to offer advice and resources and answers for young people is invaluable.
5:41:33
Finally, I want to uplift the urgent need to invest in the city's child care assistance program.
5:41:37
The New York state enacted budget allocates $350,000,000 to child care vouchers in New York City and requires New York City to allocate at least $328,000,000 to draw down these state funds.
5:41:47
We urge the city leaders to invest at least $350,000,000 in the child care assistance program to enable the city to pull down the maximum amount of the state and federal funding that supports child care vouchers for tens of thousands of low income families.
5:41:59
We urge the city leaders to work with OCFS to locate a permanent remedy for maintaining access to child care vouchers and for families going forward.
5:42:06
And finally, I will also make a plug that the ACS commissioner worked with the mayor to submit a waiver of hardship for the Raise the Age voucher in order to pull down those funds so we could have more money for those young people.
5:42:15
Thank you so much, and have a great afternoon.