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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and here on this June 1st, we note that end of June is the deadline looming over Mayor Eric Adams' proposed $107 billion budget proposal for the city for fiscal year 2024. That fiscal year starts July 1st, and the City Council is competing version two. One of the most contentious battles is being fought around education funding. Yesterday, the Adams administration announced that there will be no budget cuts to individual public schools based on drops in enrollment as there have been in the past for now.

This comes after cuts last year forced schools to get rid of arts and enrichment programs, and other things in some cases spurred a lawsuit. Our colleague education reporter Jessica Gould reports that the majority of schools will see a boost based on a new funding formula that provides more money for students in shelter and other high-needs groups. The rest will remain flat. That's K-12 schools. The fate of 3-K and pre-K programs, which serves some 90,000 New York City kids remains unclear.

Mayor Adams' latest budget proposal would get rid of the extra funding needed to maintain both programs and expand universal 3-K cutting both by almost $570 million over the next two years according to estimates by Bloomberg News. New York City Councilmember and vice co-chair of the Progressive Caucus Jennifer Gutiérrez joins us now. She represents District 34, Williamsburg, Bushwick, Ridgewood. She’s been a vocal dissident to the mayor's budget proposal on 3-K and pre-K funding in particular.

She joins us now to talk about that plus some other budgetary news of the day on housing and migrants perhaps. Councilmember Gutiérrez, welcome back to WNYC. Thanks for coming on today.

Jennifer Gutiérrez: Buenos dias. Thank you for having me back.

Brian Lehrer: I see you have some personal experience with this. Tell us about what the process of applying has been like for you and your family if you can.

Jennifer Gutiérrez: Absolutely. I have an 18-month-old and we are in a wonderful daycare. It's a family childcare, so it’s not in the center. It's in someone's home, which is very common and we're very lucky now, but we were on a waiting list for a couple of months actually. I think for three months. I had known that this process was arduous and honestly, intentionally I think opaque for a lot of new parents, especially in different parts of my district, obviously working here for so long.

Yes, I think the reality is that we have more and more families that are depending on childcare that don't have a good sense of where to go to when they're just beginning the search. Then just the realities of different dynamics. I often say this, but my mom lives with me as well as my toddler and my husband. This is the new-new normal. There's multi-generational families in one household. Those incomes often make it so that someone, a family who is in need of childcare might not react realistically qualify for a subsidy but very much in need. We find that more and more.

I don't want to say that we were struggling because we're in a great place now but it took a little bit. I'm someone that I speak English. I have privilege and I can navigate the internet and even then, it was a little like, "What are we going to do?" Then right away, I was like, "This is not an easy process for a lot of new parents. What can we do at the Council to make it more accessible, to make it easier for people to know where they are, what they qualify for, and then how can we support providers?"

They're doing God's work. They're doing so much. Oftentimes these providers are being founded and run by women, particularly women of color, and immigrant women. There's a lot there that we need to do to empower them so they can do the work that they're already doing, expand the work that they're doing so that more families can have access to them.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. There are these conflicting stats that I've seen. There was a report in April from the nonprofit Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York, which found that the demand from parents for 3-K and pre-K extended day seats, that is kids who need care for 8 to 10 hours a day, not just the normal school day for whatever family reasons. That the number of applicants outweighs the number of seats. Then I also saw numbers that I think came from the mayor's office that say only 52% of the 3-K extended day seats are filled for the school year and just 46% of the extended pre-K seats. Can you put all that together? Why is there this mismatch between number of seats and number of applicants, either too many or too few?

Jennifer Gutiérrez: Yes, absolutely. Thank you. I think a couple of things. One is I can tell you what's happening on the ground in my community hearing from parents. There are legitimately families and New Yorkers that do not know that they can qualify for extended day, they don't know where to go to. That is real. Let's not put that aside like it's not an important piece that is I think adding to the discrepancy from the administration and a nonprofit that I think really focuses on this kind of work.

I also know that the folks that should be doing this outreach, we would love for that to be the nonprofit providers. We would love for the folks that are responsible for ensuring that their community is taken care of are the people doing that work and in the community. I said this yesterday. I said, “I've seen a few DOE 3-K signs here and there, but that's not what we need. We need to meet people where they're at.” Sounds like such a common sense thing, but it doesn't happen.

At the education hearing last week, we heard from Schools Chancellor Banks that there is no marketing budget. There's no support for them to do this outreach. They acknowledge that they've never done a good job, that they could be doing better but that is a reality. Because when you talk to people in our community, or even when you talk to providers that are offering extended day, they have a waiting list. Parents need support in those non-traditional hours, for example. Not everyone is working 9:00 to 5:00 or 9:00 to 2:00. That's not realistic for a lot of people. Also, New Yorkers aren't off during the summer so they need extended year.

That statistic for me just demonstrates that there is a lack of intentional outreach by NYC public schools to fill these seats. Not that there isn't a need, because I can point you to people and families in my community that are relying on this 100%. I think it is 100% that the city is not empowering and contracting with these providers to do that outreach, which they used to do, which they are the most equipped and most knowledgeable to do, and I don't think they're doing a good job of doing it in all the languages and culturally sensitive information. There's a lot to do here than just walk away with like, "Oh, we've only failed 52%." That's not real. That's not a real number that we should use.

We should really be looking at alternatives to get this information out there to people. We should not be in the job of making these cuts and saying, "Well, this is all we have. This is the best we can do." We should always be looking at how to do better, how to communicate with our communities better and how to be more present, not the opposite.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC, FM HDNA in New York, WNJT-FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcon, WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are in New York and New Jersey Public Radio and live streaming at wnyc.org with New York City Councilmember and Vice Co-Chair of the Progressive Caucus, Jennifer Gutiérrez from Williamsburg, Bushwick, and Ridgewood, District 34 as we talk about 3-K and pre-K funding primarily and we'll touch on a couple of other things as points of contention in the budget negotiations now underway for the new New York City fiscal year, which begins July 1st.

212-433-WNYC is our phone number. If you have a comment or a question on the topic, 212-433-9692 to call or to text us. Councilmember, you're the sponsor of legislation I see the cause for creating universal childcare. I'm curious what's in the bill and if that's different from the de Blasio administration's goal for universal 3-K and pre-K, which childcare is one of its functions, to have that universally available for working parents?

Jennifer Gutiérrez: Yes, thank you. I'm really proud of that bill because it's actually five pages right now. We've only introduced it so I think it will only expand after the hearing and with more community conversations. I think it's complementary to de Blasio's 3-K and universal pre-K plan because the goal is the same, which is the realities of the value of childcare. What this bill particularly focuses- -on is providing childcare from six weeks old up to five. Definitely, it complement and include 3-K and UPK. But there's also other pieces that I'm really proud of that I think we don't really have a policy narrative around often, which is the creation and the support of more childcare centers and spaces for people.

Like I mentioned earlier, the majority of the people in this workforce are women of color, immigrant women. This is a viable profession, but we have not seen a significant amount of support. We can tell you that the city does a very poor job at paying them, let alone paying them on time, let alone observing pay parity between childcare providers and DOE staff that are also doing 3-K And UPK. This bill really calls to create a plan so that we can get there. We want to pay our providers on time.

It is important-- I cannot talk about childcare enough without saying that we also need to include the people that are doing this work. Childcare is important because we know that more and more-- it's predominantly women that are being forced to make the decision between pursuing their career or staying home because childcare is so expensive. Women in a lifetime on average will lose out on about half a million dollars of salary because they're making this decision, but we also need to talk about the benefit to the economy.

The city could potentially lose $23 billion in economic output because caregivers are staying home and the providers are making tough decisions whether to close their site down because they're not being paid on time by the DOE, or having to let go of really important and valuable staff because they can't guarantee that they're going to be reimbursed on time. That is something that we need to correct.

The bill does a number of those things. It also looks for what I think are common sense data. We want to look at birth trends. We want to ensure that daycare deserts are a thing in the past, but we know that in communities, especially in the outer boroughs and communities of color, we see this being a very common characteristics where parents just don't have access to childcare in the way that they might in other affluent neighborhoods.

The bill is really looking for a comprehensive look at how we can make this a reality for New York City, the things and the steps that we need to do to make sure that we're being equitable, that we're being inclusive, and that we're wronging all the rights. The bill complements the previous administration's intention because it has that goal, but I think it's a little bit more comprehensive, and that it's looking at all the gaps and essentially where administrations in the past have failed and how we can improve it.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Nora in Westchester, you're on WNYC. Hi, Nora.

Nora: Hi. My sister is a social worker. She started during the de Blasio administration and the pre-K and 3-K programs, and she loves it. She told me she felt like this is the work she was born to do. Then the administration changed and it's all completely different. It's very uncertain. She told me now it's not like that anymore. It's just a job and I find that very sad.

Brian Lehrer: Can you go one level deeper into that Nora? What does she think changed?

Nora: Well, so what happened was when they came back to work last year, they were told that-- let's see. There are 185 of them. Only 70 of them would actually be kept on full time, and those who were wouldn't be going to their same schools. Obviously, they’ll have to cover many more schools and kids. They had a letter from the DOE saying that they couldn't go back to the schools that they had worked at even to say hello. I don't remember everything else that happened, but it was a lot of, “You can't do this and better not do that.” They were all very uncertain and wondering what was going to happen.

Brian Lehrer: Nora, thank you for your call. I don't know if you've been hearing stories like that elsewhere Councilmember, but on the uncertainty that she mentioned at the end, do you think that Mayor Adams is not as committed to universal 3-K and universal pre-K as Mayor de Blasio was?

Jennifer Gutiérrez: I think so. Yes. Because I think what we've been hearing from this administration, from the mayor himself, is that they are more interested in looking on where they can make savings to 3-K. They are more interested in highlighting where there are vacancies because, “We need to be fiscally responsible." I think what Nora alluded to at one point, in that there were more social workers and more folks available in the past is that we really do need to approach this from an angle of investment because that's when it's successful.

That's when to her point, staff is happy, when families are happy. I do think that this administration is really laser-focused on observing any savings in education under 3-K, which is unfortunate, because what we need is more investment in social services that are really providing for our families. That's going to help with public safety. That's going to help with insecurity. All of those investments are vital, but what we're seeing is the complete opposite.

One of the first things we heard in the budget last year was, “We don't have enough kids for these seats and so we're going to make these cuts.” Our response as a council was, "Well, what are you doing to ensure that families want to enroll their kids?" I'm a DOE kid, K-12. Just like my sister, we went to public schools. We have a lot to be proud about and so many people in our communities love enrolling their kids in public schools. But if the narrative out there from the mayor, from the leader of our city is, “We're going to cut 3-K because we just don't think we have the families,” then what incentive do families have to research the closest pre-K center or pre-K center around them to enroll their kid.

I just think there's a very backwards approach to how we should be doing outreach, to how we shouldn't be communicating with families, and ultimately, how we're approaching this budget. We cannot look at 3-K as a cost. We have to look at it as an investment in the way that I would hope that we look at universal childcare. The concept of K-12 was radical, but look at how amazing and how beneficial it's been. I really think that that is the way that we should look at universal childcare, zero to five, and that includes 3-K.

We have to look at it as an investment for our economies, for the lifeblood of our city, of our communities. I do feel that there is this focus to look at savings when it comes to social services that New Yorkers desperately, desperately need.

Brian Lehrer: Before you go, let me ask you one closing question that's sort of off-topic, but also sort of on-topic and broader. As a leader of the Progressive Caucus in the council, we covered back in February when the Progressive Caucus was nearly cut in half as 14 members out of the 35 left over a statement of principles that you published in particular. The statement included the clause to, "Do everything we can to reduce the size and scope of the NYPD and the Department of Correction." A lot of members found that that went too far for them. I'm curious how that's all playing out in the budget negotiations right now between council and the mayor.

Jennifer Gutiérrez: Well, I want to say that I'm really proud of what the caucus is putting out there. Now, I think we are really committed to for many of us the values that we ran on. When we talk about reducing the size and scope of PD, we're talking about the way that we've been conditioned to understand public safety as excessive police presence, but what we know and what data supports is that public safety is rooted in housing security and food security, in mental health services.

The Progressive Caucus is really, really committed. You can check it out on our website, on how we want to approach the budget this year. We're echoing a lot of what Speaker Adams has also said in conjunction with the whole body, which is we want to see investments to mental health services. That means expanding OPCs. It means investing in more respite centers. It means really approaching the symptoms of our city from a comprehensive way.

I'm really proud of what we're doing at the Progressive Caucus. We're working, and we're pushing, and we're a really diverse body that are representing all sorts of communities in New York City, but we're really committed to ensuring that we're not just talking about public safety. We're also talking about we want no budget cuts to any agencies. We know that if DOB is not fully staffed and they're not doing the inspections to keep apartments safe for New Yorkers, that's a problem.

If HRA is not fully staffed and they can't process SNAP benefits in a timely manner, that's a problem. Those are the things that the Progressive Caucus are fighting for. I'm honestly really proud. I'd also just like to say that we're hosting a Zoom budget town hall so more New Yorkers can understand the process and can get plugged in. That's going to be on June 6th at 6:30. If you want to look at more of the information, you can just go to nycprogressives.com for folks to follow what we're doing with regard to the budget and all things Progressive Caucus at the council.

Brian Lehrer: Of course, we'll continue to follow the budget negotiations here as they continue through the month of June. We'll see how close to the July 1st or let's say midnight June 30th deadline it actually takes you all and the mayor to reach a budget agreement.

Jennifer Gutiérrez: Right. We’ve got plans baby. We hope we can get this, we hope we can get there.

Brian Lehrer: You want your summer vacation, so does everybody.

Jennifer Gutiérrez: I want to get to work.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Councilmember Jennifer Gutierrez, thank you so much for joining us.

Jennifer Gutiérrez: Thank you so much, Brian. Be well. Thank you all.

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