By Forum Staff
Mayor Eric Adams and City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams on Friday announced that, thanks to strong fiscal management, the City will make multiple new investments, including more than $500 million in city and state funding for educational programs for young New Yorkers in Mayor Adams’ Executive Budget this week.
First, the city will protect $514 million — the majority of which will be baselined with recurring dollars — in City Department of Education programs that were only previously supported with temporary stimulus dollars, including mental health care, career readiness, and literacy programs for New York City public school students in the Fiscal Year 2025 Executive Budget.
The Adams administration will also launch a $5 million outreach effort to maximize the number of children enrolled in 3-K and Pre-K programs across New York City. Additionally, the city will invest $25 million in funding to provide special education classes and related services within district schools to Pre-K students with special needs who would otherwise be on waiting lists at contracted providers. Finally, Mayor Adams announced the city will invest $8 million toward the MyCity portal, making it easier for any New Yorker to apply for subsidized child care and other city services.
Currently, the City has tens of thousands of empty early childhood education seats that remain unfilled every day. The city’s $5 million outreach effort aims to maximize the number of children enrolled in child care, and by focusing on populations and neighborhoods with low enrollment rates, the administration will help ensure the promise that any child who needs an early childhood education seat can access one. Since taking office, the Adams administration has prioritized making accessible and affordable child care available to any parent who needs it, boosting the number of children enrolled in child care by nearly 36,000 — a 27 percent increase — and reduced the per child co-pay from an average of $55 per week to less than $5 per week.
By stabilizing the budget and fiscal outlook, the Adams administration has been able to invest city and state recurring dollars and protect 15 DOE programs that were supported under the last mayoral administration with expiring federal stimulus dollars. In the Executive Budget, the Adams administration will apply a combination of $514 million in city resources and recurring state funds, to backfill programs, including:
- Supporting the citywide 3-K expansion as it transitions from its original stimulus funding source ($92 million, FY25);
- Supporting nearly 500 social workers and psychologists who provide mental health supports in schools ($74 million, FY25+);
- Maintain funding for special education Pre-K providers to increase service hours, and resources for DOE-related services and evaluation teams ($56 million, FY25+);
- Funding for the 113 Community Schools that were supported with stimulus ($48 million, FY25+) and Program to Eliminate the Gap restoration that would have impacted 170 Community Schools ($8 million, FY25+);
- Pathways program that facilitates career pathways programs in high schools, offering apprenticeships, career-readiness, and access to college credits ($53 million, FY25+);
- Arts funding programming ($41 million, FY25);
- Funding for Learn to Work at transfer schools and Young Adult Borough Centers, which offer counselors and internships to at-risk adults and older youth at 66 sites ($31 million, FY25);
- The Public Schools Athletic League ($27 million, FY25+);
- Literacy and dyslexia programs and academic assessments for both English language arts, and math ($17 million, FY25+);
