Mayor Eric Adams said on Wednesday he would restore $167 million in early childhood education funding in his upcoming Executive Budget that had been left out of his preliminary spending plan — $30 million less than what the City Council called for in its own proposal this month.
The $167 million commitment breaks down into $112 million for expanding the city’s universal preschool program for 3-year-olds — known as 3-K—and $55 million for universal pre-K special education classes. According to the mayor’s office, those programs will receive the same level of funding going forward, which is known as baselining.
Hizzoner announced the move alongside the programs’ creator, former Mayor Bill de Blasio, during an April 16 news conference at the Department of Education’s Tweed Courthouse headquarters in lower Manhattan.
“For the first time ever, we will baseline the funding, investing almost $170 million annually to support popular and critical programs like pre-K special education [and the] expansion of citywide 3-K,” Adams said. ” We baselined this. What does that mean in political terms? That means any administration that can come can’t screw it up and can’t touch it. It’s in the budget, and it would be permanent in the budget.”
However, the mayor’s funding restorations still fall far short of the $197 million commitment City Council leaders pushed for in their budget response on April 3.
City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, Finance Chair Justin Brannan, and Education Chair Rita Joseph, in a joint statement, said the mayor’s restorations still exclude funding for extending child care days and hours, vouchers, and outreach for the programs.
“While it is positive that Mayor Adams is returning and baselining some of the money withheld from his budget that the council fought for, he is still cutting tens of millions of dollars from our children,” they said in a statement. “Taking funding away from children’s programs that our families rely on and putting some of it back does not truly help in the long-term, but harms the early childhood education system.”
The mayor’s cuts and restorations to 3-K and pre-K has been an ongoing point of contention between the two sides of City Hall over the past few budget cycles. The council has consistently pushed for expanding the programs year after year, while Adams has argued funding cuts were necessary to rightsize programs that were not being fully utilized.
Adams has attributed many of the issues his administration has faced, such as a misalignment between empty early childhood education seats and the communities that need the placements most, to what he has characterized as de Blasio’s mismanagement of the programs. Yet, on Wednesday, the mayor lavished his predecessor with praise for launching 3-K and universal pre-K, despite his past comments.
“The most important thing is, one can have differences on applications implementations, but we don’t differ on the foundation,” Adams said. “The foundation is early childhood education. I’m pretty sure in six years, whoever comes after me, they’re going to look at some of my ways of doing things, but the principles are always intact. He was clearly the visionary.”
De Blasio in turn sidestepped questions about Adams’ previous criticisms, saying “I’m not sweating the past,” while giving him credit for establishing baseline funding for the programs.
