00:00There is a new study out that says that the child care program is going to be much more costly
00:06than initially suggested,
00:08that it could cost up to $9 billion.
00:10I'm just wondering what exactly is going to be the strategy to ramp this up and to keep costs down.
00:15And then for Governor Kathy Hochul, just wondering, will the state continue to fund this program?
00:20Is this just kick-starting, or will the state be expected to fully fund this program for the years to
00:26come, especially when it expands?
00:27So I'll just begin by saying that when I acknowledged earlier the partnership with Governor Hochul,
00:32it's a partnership that began at the very beginning of this administration.
00:35On day eight, we stood together in Brooklyn announcing that the state would be committing $1.2 billion.
00:41And that was funding that not only allowed us to offer these 2,000 seats this year, 12,000 seats
00:47next year,
00:48it also ensured that we had funding to fix the issues that parents identified with 3K.
00:53Because we'd heard from many parents that as much as they had dreamed, like Sandra and Fred,
00:57of being able to walk three minutes or maybe ten minutes, if we look at the rocks, to their school,
01:03that too many parents were being forced to go miles away from their home to find that child care.
01:08And so that funding helped us also resolve those issues while also providing funding towards vouchers.
01:13And we've always said that the goal here is to make it affordable to raise a family.
01:19Because the question is not about whether this will cost money, it's a question of who will pay that money.
01:23And what I mean by that is that today we have families across the city spending, as the governor said,
01:29between $20,000 to $40,000 a year to raise their child in the nation's most expensive city.
01:34And this is an initiative that we are working on, not just for the short term or the medium term,
01:38but the long term, to make it easier to raise that family here in New York City.
01:43We plan to do an independent verification of the actual costs required, not just an outside study.
01:48That's how we operate, so I want to make sure that the media understands that.
01:53And in my budget this year, we've allocated $4.5 billion for child care.
01:59As the mayor outlined, substantial amounts of that come to the city,
02:02but also trying to expand to areas that have been underserved across the state of New York.
02:07I am committed through the program next year.
02:10I can't commit future budgets at this time, but I can tell you right now, I'm excited about the growth
02:17of this.
02:17This is just the very beginning.
02:19We know there's a lot more families to be served.
02:21We'll serve them in a way that we can afford.
02:23But I was proud to make the allocations we did within the confines of our existing budget this year
02:28and make commitments for next year as well.
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