Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani: Hello Brownsville, thank you all for that spirited and incredible entrance. I want to say thank you, first and foremost, to Victory Music and Dance Company and CEO Nicole Williams. Truly appreciate it. I'm proud to be joined here this morning by a number of our elected partners. We have our State Senator Roxanne Persaud, who is with us; our state senator, Jabari Brisport, who is with us and our Assemblywoman, Latrice Walker, who is with us. And we are also joined by leaders in our administration, like the executive director and senior advisor, Emmy Liss, of our Office of Child Care and Early Childhood Education. And I also want to acknowledge our executive director for United for Brownsville, Tiera Mack, as well.
So, we stand here together across multiple levels of government with the recognition that working nine to five is not just an iconic Dolly Parton song. It is also a reality for many New Yorkers across the five boroughs. For those New Yorkers with young kids, however, holding down a nine to five and managing pickup and drop off at a traditional 3 p.m. time can be unmanageable. We see parents who are forced to either miss important work obligations, reduce work hours or shell out for secondary child care.
Last month, we announced the launch of universal 2-K free child care for two-year-olds, starting with 2,000 seats this fall in neighborhoods just like this one, that need it the most. In the time since, we've been speaking to New Yorkers about how this program can best meet their needs. As part of that conversation, we are gathered here today, proud to announce that the default model for 2-K seats across the city will be full-day and full-year, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Now, that is going to be 10 hours a day, 260 days a year. A typical school year, as we know, only lasts 180 days. What this will do is save working parents at least $20,000 per child.
Now, part of the $1.2 billion we secured in partnership with the governor. As we build out a pathway to universal child care for children, not just two years old but even further, as soon as we will reach down to six weeks and older. It is work that is at its best when it's supporting the needs of working families. And we know that there are too many parents for whom the traditional model of child care has forced them to rush out of the office. [It] has forced them to pray that their stars will align, so that they will actually be able to pick up their child in time. Only to then have to work sometimes a double shift, where they finish out the end of their day with their child and provide them child care at the same time. Today's announcement, frankly, is one that is only possible because of the incredible work, not just for weeks or months, but frankly, for years from child care advocates, from parents, from neighborhood leaders [and] from elected officials like the ones that I'm standing with today, who all fought for a better system.
Now, to paraphrase Dolly Parton once more, City Hall is drinking our daily cup of ambition as we look to prove that government can work for working families. And I would ask any parent that is watching this to know that when you raised your voice the first time, it's part of what allowed us to get to this decision. I ask you to keep raising your voice, especially in this moment. And we've sent out a parent survey to parents across the five boroughs. This is with the intent of helping us design the next steps of universal child care. And you can fill that survey out at nyc.gov/parentsurvey. Now, with that being said, I am now going to turn it over to State Senator Roxanne Persaud. Thank you.
New York State Senator Roxanne J. Persaud: Good morning. Thank you, everyone. Welcome to Senate District 19. Welcome to Brownsville. Today is a day of celebration. Too often we've had parents who are saying: "I can't work [and] I can't go to school because of the constraints with child care." Today, we are letting the parents know that they have an option. They have the option to leave their child from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and go to school and then leave school and go to work or vice versa. And so, we want to say thank you to Mayor Mamdani. And also thank you to Governor Hochul for also giving the funding towards this project.
Child care is an important step in elevating families out of poverty, elevating families so that communities are better. And so, as we take this step today, I want to again say thank you. Thank you to my colleagues, because we are continuing to fight to ensure that no child is without daycare. And no parent should say: "I cannot do [this] because I do not have daycare, I cannot do [that] because I do not have daycare." That is unacceptable in this great city of ours, we are saying daycare is something that we are committed to. And so again, thank you, Mayor Mamdani. And again, welcome to Brownsville.
Mayor Mamdani: Thank you so much. And now it is a pleasure of mine to introduce the Chair of the State Senate Committee on Children and Families, someone who has long been at the forefront of advocacy for universal child care across the city and across the state, who has been on the front lines of ensuring that parents' voices are never lost in this conversation. And I'm so glad to have our state senator, Jabari Brisport.
New York State Senator Jabari Brisport: Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. Thank you all for being here. It is indeed I, State Senator Jabari Brisport, chair of the Committee on Children and Families, author of the Universal Child Care Act, state senator for Brownsville, starting across the street. Thank you for having me stamp my passport, Senator Persaud. But I am super grateful for the announcement of this initiative today from the mayor. Thank you for choosing to make the announcement in Brownsville. Thank you for noting notable Brownsville icons like Dolly Parton and for recognizing that this is something that will change the lives of so many working parents. What we are announcing today is the start of something truly magical, truly beautiful [and] truly expansive. And I cannot wait to be a partner, a state partner, as we continue to build this out to be fighting in years to come for the billions of dollars extra that are needed and deserved to expand this program. And let's get it done. Thank you again.
Mayor Mamdani: And it is now my pleasure to introduce my former colleague, one of the strongest advocates for Brownsville that I've ever had the privilege of meeting, Assemblywoman Latrice Walker.
Assembly Member Latrice Walker: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Well, I am the beautiful brown barrister from Brownsville. What can I say? You know, it's interesting being born and raised in this community and educated in District 23. And so, we know that education is our greatest equalizer. It is the one thing that allowed this little girl who grew up in the New York City Housing Authority to be able to go on to school here locally and come back as an attorney and come back and represent the community doing the job that I am having a ball in.
And this is just the opportunity that we're saying to our young people, we know that it's easier to build strong children than it is to repair broken men. And the earlier we take a step towards that goal, the better off our return on investments are. And so, I want to welcome and thank Mayor Mamdani for being here and fighting on behalf of your constituents and children and creating opportunities for our families. Of course, the greetings have been extended to our fellow colleagues, but Victory Music and Dance is an example, a prime example of really what it means when we make early investments.
Those kids go on to graduate from high school. They go on to college, and they return back to the community and raise their families so that they can take advantage of these 2,000 new seats that will be opening up this fall. And we're looking forward to universal child care. Today's announcement sends a clear message that families with the greatest needs will not be forgotten.
Thank you for your leadership on this issue. I am committed to working with you in this state as we march forward towards universal healthcare and universal child care. Implementation will, of course, benefit our communities a great deal. Thank you so much. I am Assembly Member Latrice Walker.
Question: In terms of staffing challenges, mayor, you talked before about part of what made 3-K such a bumpy rollout, was it was a full day and also, they hadn't fully staffed it. So, how big a challenge is it to staff this for 10-hour shifts that might end up being 12-hour shifts for the workers? How many people do you have to hire, and how confident are you to be ready on day one?
Mayor Mamdani: So, a lot of the work that we've been doing over the last few months has not just been to engage parents, but also to engage providers themselves. Requests for information, requests for proposals, getting a better sense of what their needs are, what their capacity is and also looking to expand the traditional pool of those that have contracted with the city. You know, for many years prior to this one, the city had a fixed set of child care vendors that it would work with. Now, we're actually opening that up for the first time in quite some time. I'm just going to invite Emmy to speak to any of the specifics.
Executive Director Emmy Liss, Office of Child Care and Early Childhood Education: For this fall, for the launch of 2-K, we'll be working primarily with child care providers who are already up and running. So, folks who are serving their communities already and bringing them into the city program. So, we anticipate many of them do already have the staff in place to run a high-quality, robust program. Those who do not, the city offers a range of support to help them bring new staff in. We're also so excited that 2-K includes a really robust partnership with family child care providers who operate programs out of their homes. And the vast majority are already operating programs for ten or more hours a day. So, this is really an opportunity to bring them into our system and lift them up as part of the expansion.
Question: As a quick follow-up, where is 3-K right now in terms of full-day?
Executive Director Liss: So, the majority of our city's 3-K programs operate on a school day schedule. There [is] a subset of our 3-K programs that offer an extended model.
Question: Going off of that last question, given that we know that the lack of extended hours is not just an issue for this new group of two-year-olds, but also for the three- and four-year-olds. Will you be revisiting 3-K and 4-K to explore more extended day options?
Mayor Mamdani: So, I'll say that as a city, we are constantly looking towards a goal of offering full-day, full-year at larger scale across programs, across ages and what we've sought to do over the course of our ninety-nine days that we've been in office is to better meet the needs of New Yorkers. Now, one of the critiques that we heard from New Yorkers around 3-K, something that I used to hear quite a bit from State Senator Brisport, was the inability of the city to meet the need of providing seats closer to families who are looking to enroll their children.
We would tell New Yorkers that you could have a seat if you applied, without mentioning that you might live in Bed-Stuy and your seat would be in Astoria. And so, as part of the $1.2 billion that we secured, a critical piece of it was put towards providing an additional 1,000 in the 3-K program to better meet those needs closer to home for [the] parents who are looking to enroll.
Question: I just wanted to know, in terms of extending it to a ten-hour day, what's the added cost to the 2-K program, or is there one?
Mayor Mamdani: So, this is covered within the $1.2 billion that we secured from the governor.
Executive Director Liss: And just exactly as the mayor said, the budget is fully covered within the commitment that the governor announced with the mayor earlier this year. So, we're excited to be able to deliver this more robust model to families.
Question: So, following up on a bit of my colleagues' reporting, some of your top administration officials and NYPD chiefs went to Columbus, Ohio, to study their Dialogue Unit. Will the NYPD implement such a unit as part of your efforts to disband the SRG? And more broadly, can you provide a timeline on disbanding the SRG?
Mayor Mamdani: I remain deeply committed to disbanding the SRG and to decoupling our response to protest and counterterrorism. And this is a trip of members from both City Hall and NYPD to better study the Columbus model of responding to protests.
