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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Jirazel Muñoz, Program Director of Center for Family Life in Sunset Park
4:58:58
·
129 sec
Jirazel Muñoz, Program Director at the Center for Family Life in Sunset Park, testifies about the importance of fully funding year-round after-school programs (COMPASS) in fiscal year 2026. She emphasizes the critical role these programs play in supporting working families and providing quality childcare and educational activities.
- Highlights the risk of program closures due to insufficient funding in FY 2026
- Explains how federal funding cuts, such as from AmeriCorps, have impacted providers' ability to meet COMPASS requirements
- Stresses the need for increased funding to hire qualified staff and maintain program quality
Jirazel Muñoz
4:58:58
Thank you chair Stevens and the city council for your support for children and youth across New York City.
4:59:03
My name is Jeriso Munoz and I'm a licensed social worker and compass director at the Center for Family Life in Sunset Park, Brooklyn at PS 971.
4:59:12
I am here calling for the city to fully fund year round after school in fiscal year twenty six, not just fiscal year twenty seven when the new Compass contract goes into effect.
4:59:23
By funding Compass programs at the rates DYCD has laid out through FY '20 '6, programs are at risk of closing.
4:59:30
Having spent the last decade working at five different schools across the Sunset Park neighborhood, I can assure you that families depend on these free programs for economic stability.
4:59:41
In Sunset Park, not only does Compass support our hardworking immigrant families for five for after school five days a week, it also serves families across it also serves families access to additional two and a half weeks of childcare, ten hours per day for the 13 school closure days and holidays that Compass programs operate.
5:00:01
In fact, principals often use free after school and vacation programming as a selling point to prospective families and their kindergarten tours.
5:00:09
With federal funding cuts from AmeriCorps being suddenly terminated and under the threat of termination, providers across the city like CFL who have used those funding sources to plug the gaps that the inadequate COMPASS funding leaves, we will not be able to staff the programs or meet the contractual mandates.
5:00:25
The COMPASS program model requires that all children receive a prescribed number of hours per week in structure activity such as STEM literacy and physical fitness.
5:00:34
However, without AmeriCorps to supplement the insufficient COMPASS rates, CFL and many providers like us will be prohibited from hiring qualified education specialists, which is a role required by COMPASS, or the caliber of activity specialists who can provide rigorous high quality instruction and teach the activities that Compass requires and that they evaluate us on.
5:00:56
In fact, the current rate just allows us to meet the required one to 10 staff to participant ratio with high school and college age staff paid less than $20 per hour.
5:01:06
Thank you so much.