Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani: Good morning, Staten Island. What a gorgeous day to be in the "Borough of Parks." I can think of no better place to enjoy this first hint of spring. I want to say first and foremost, thank you to the staff and students of Richmond Pre-K Center for that incredibly warm and catchy welcome. It is clear to all of us here that this school runs on a lot of love, and it is such a pleasure to be here alongside New York's cutest with us today.
I also want to say thank you to our chancellor, Kamar Samuels, as well as our superintendent, Roderick Palton, for having us here today. So, whenever I'm lucky enough to catch a ride on the Staten Island Ferry, I am reminded that the Statue of Liberty is more than just a breathtaking monument. It is a testament to our values. One of the less quoted lines from the Emma Lazarus poem etched on her tablet reads, "From her beacon-hand glows world-wide welcome." Welcome is not merely a gesture we extend to newcomers. Welcome also has to be something that we always offer, that we extend to everyone.
And yet we know that for too many, life in New York City is anything but welcoming. Our city has become so expensive that a dignified life is becoming unimaginable to many who have lived here for generations - our city's nurses, teachers, and civil servants. They do not want to leave yet, so often they feel as if they have no choice but to do exactly that. But what we are gathered here to announce, my friends, [is that] we'll change that, and we'll make a welcoming life that little bit more possible in the city that we call home. Today, I am proud to announce that we are expanding access to universal 3-K in 56 ZIP codes across the five boroughs.
I want to thank Governor Hochul for her continued partnership in this work. This progress would not be possible without her leadership, and what progress it is. Beginning this fall, we will add more than 1,000 free 3-K seats in the neighborhoods where we have historically seen more family demand than provider supply. So, hear me when I say this. If you live in Staten Island, more 3-K is coming. If you live in Western Queens, more 3-K is coming. If you live in the South Bronx or South Brooklyn, more 3-K is coming. In more than half of the school districts of our city, more than 3-K is coming. And this is an expansion that will help to address long-running issues with universal 3-K, including proximity. It is time to call it like it is.
A seat [in] a 3-K program does not do much to lift the burdens off of working families' backs when a working parent has to take a bus and two subways just to get to that seat. Back in January, when Governor Hochul and I committed more than $100 million towards improving 3-K, this is exactly the kind of improvement that we were talking about. I also want to thank the early childhood providers we are partnering with in this work.
For far too long, we have not only allowed this city to become so expensive that it is the most expensive in the country, [but] we have also not recognized the incredible work done by early child care providers. And this work was done today, a large part made possible by the RFI that we put out not that long ago, where we looked to gauge the interest and capacity from providers who had both been participating as well as those that would be interested in participating with our New York City Public School system.
And I look forward to continuing to work with providers to ensure that they have what they need to participate in the 2026 to 2027 school year. Today's announcement is only one part of our effort to deliver universal child care to every single corner of the five boroughs. Last week, we announced that our city will provide 2,000 free child care seats for two-year-olds in four parts of our city. This is the initial rollout, and we want to get it right so that once Fall 2027 comes around, we have the infrastructure in place to provide free 2-K to approximately 12,000 children, including those right here in Staten Island.
An investment in universal child care will save parents more than $20,000 per child. It will allow our kids to grow up happier and healthier, with kids who attend preschool nearly 6 percent more likely to attend college. It will also rewrite statistics like the one that tells us that families with kids under the age of six are twice as likely to leave New York City. Put simply, universal child care will transform our city in a way that will be felt by every single New Yorker. As we expand access to 3-K, as we launch for the first time in city history free 2-K, we are making what Wall Street would describe as a good investment.
Researchers estimate that every dollar spent on early care results in as much as $13 in return. After Quebec began offering universal child care, the number of women in the workforce with young children grew by 16 percent. And we know the costs of the absence of this policy far too intimately. In a city like ours, which lost $23 billion in economic activity in 2022 alone because of parents who had to quit their jobs or cut back working hours, this has the potential to supercharge our economy.
Make no mistake, universal child care will support and grow our workforce. It will increase our tax revenue, and it will help us become the welcoming city we aspire to be. And I want to close with this. Someday, many years from now, a new generation of New Yorkers will raise their children here in our city. They will worry about all the things that new parents worry about - if they will ever get another good night of sleep. Whether their child will learn to share with their sibling. When is really the best time to potty train.
But they won't ever worry, not for a moment, about whether their family will be able to access quality child care or whether they will be able to afford it. They will feel welcomed in our city each day when they drop off their children with providers who love them; as they make their way to jobs, they never have to consider leaving. And they'll never even imagine that for many years, it wasn't this way. On behalf of all those New Yorkers who come next, I look forward to continuing this work together. Thank you so much. And now with that, I will pass it over to our [New York City Public] Schools chancellor, Kamar Samuels.
Chancellor Kamar H. Samuels, New York City Public Schools: Thank you, Mayor. I see you're doing a lot of research on what it takes to be a new parent. Don't worry, I'm not going to join your parents in pressuring you; it's all good. Thank you, Mayor Mamdani, for your leadership and clear commitment to delivering for New York City families. When we invest in our youngest learners, New York's cutest, we invest in the future of our city. And I am grateful for the partnership that makes progress like this possible.
We know that the earliest years of a child's life are the most important ones. And so, academic rigor should begin in every child's first classroom to lay the foundation for future success and for lifelong learning. For too many families, the promise of 3-K has not always matched the reality. Today, we are taking an important step towards fixing that.
So, when I say 3, you say K. 3? K. 3? K.
And by adding more than 1,000 new seats across 56 ZIP codes, we are bringing programs into communities where families actually live and where demand is the greatest. This expansion is more than about numbers. It's about making the system function the way it always was meant to. So that families can find high-quality early childhood education close to home. It also strengthens our network providers - give it up for the providers - by bringing new partners into the system while continuing to support the dedicated educators and organizations already serving our youngest New Yorkers - New York's cutest.
And as we expand, we remain committed to inclusive classrooms for every child, including increasing services and program options for children with disabilities where there is unmet need. So together, we are building a 3-K system that truly works for families and ensuring that every child in every neighborhood has the strong start they deserve.
Thank you all for being here, and when I say 3, you say K. 3? K. Thank you.
Question: Do you guys know approximately, at this point, how many seats on Staten Island of those 1,000?
Mayor Mamdani: So, we - overall, it's going to be more than 1,000, specifically in the neighborhoods where we've seen, as the chancellor said, that demand has outstripped supply. These are - they're also - of those neighborhoods, there are about six ZIP codes on Staten Island. I'll just pass it over to Emmy to speak a little bit more specifically to it.
Executive Director Emmy Liss, Office of Child Care and Early Childhood Education: We have not yet identified how many seats will be specifically on Staten Island. The next step, now that we've announced these ZIP codes, is we'll start working with early childhood providers, both those who we currently partner with and those who are newly interested in partnering with us. And as we confirm their capacity and interest to offer new 3-K seats this fall, we'll share that information with families and broadly.
Question: I want to ask about how you picked these neighborhoods. Notably, it is a number of wealthier neighborhoods: Upper East, Upper West Side, [and] Brownstone, Brooklyn. Do you want to respond to that? This was a talking point during the Adams administration when they backed off that planned expansion.
Mayor Mamdani: I think what it comes to is that we are sincere in our desire to deliver universal 3-K. And for a long time, what characterized the city's approach was that it would rely on a technicality, saying that a family had been offered a seat [in] 3-K without specifying that that family living in Parkchester was offered a seat perhaps in Park Slope. What we want is to actually meet the demand such that we're not asking a three-year-old to get on the train themselves to go to what should be something that their family can be able to drop them off at in their own neighborhood.
And I'll give you just one more example before passing it over. This is targeted to the specific ZIP codes where we have seen demand outstrip supply. For example, we're here in Staten Island. Staten Island has one single school district for the entire borough. However, you could technically say that, yes, you're going to be offered a seat in your school district. But we know that depending on where in that district it is, it could be quite impossible for a family. That's why the focus here is on specific ZIP codes in Staten Island so that a family knows that they'll actually be able to drop their kid off and keep living the life that they want to.
Question: Aside from this school, which is already open, will this 3-K expansion include any of the nearly three dozen ghost schools the [New York] Post reported on that the city paid for but still hasn't opened under the last two administrations?
Mayor Mamdani: So, we are looking very much at any and all tools that we can use to deliver this to New Yorkers. You know, it wasn't that many weeks ago that I was standing at an early child care center on the Upper East Side that had been ready to be opened. It had still sat dormant for months. And we've now brought that back into circulation, where families could actually update their applications for 3-K to include what was going to be, I think, the first early childhood center within that ZIP code. I'll just pass it over on the additional ones.
Executive Director Liss: As we look across these ZIP codes and again think about all the ways we can expand access, we will be looking at all of the buildings to identify whether they meet a need. And again, we will also be working really closely with our child care providers, who have been partners to us to make sure we're expanding with them as well.
Question: The state legislature today is unveiling their one-house budgets, looking at - they're asking for a smaller increase to taxes on both millionaires and corporations [than] you had proposed. Will you still be able to fund your initiatives using the money that they're proposing? And on the other hand of this, do you think this does put Governor Hochul in a tough position during a re-election year, as you and the state legislature are pressuring her to raise taxes this year?
Mayor Mamdani: I'll first just start with the Governor, and then I'll speak about the legislature's one-house budgets. Today is an example of what a partnership between a governor and a mayor can deliver for the City of New York. We came together on day eight of our administration to announce Governor Hochul's leadership, committing more than $1.2 billion dollars, and that was $1.2 billion dollars that many focused on in terms of delivering, for the first time in history, free 2-K for New Yorkers and child care for two-year-olds. Also, within it were more than $100 million dollars allocated specifically for the purpose that we're celebrating today, which is finally being able to meet the demand of families. And so I want to just say thank you to the Governor, not only for her leadership but also for her partnership in quite literally making it easier for families to raise their kids in the city, taking what would otherwise be a more than $20,000 a year expense off the backs of those working families.
When it comes to the legislature, the legislature and I agree: we cannot bridge a $5.4 billion-dollar budget deficit on the backs of working-class New Yorkers. And I want to thank Speaker Heastie. I want to thank Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and the Assembly and Senate Democratic conferences for having taken meaningful steps to address this budget deficit and the one that we inherited, including by asking wealthier New Yorkers to pay that little bit more and by creating a fair balance between the city and the state when it comes to our fiscal relationship.
I'm also grateful for both of their one-house budgets and their inclusion of an extension of the fare-free bus pilot. This is a time when one in five New Yorkers are struggling to afford the cost of a MetroCard. And their commitment to addressing that in partnership with the city is one that is not only incredibly encouraging but also deeply appreciated.
And I think all of this comes back to the partnership we're looking to build across all leadership in Albany, one that is already delivering for New Yorkers. And we are encouraged by the prospect of it continuing to do so over the course of the budget process.
Question: [Inaudible.]
Mayor Mamdani: I'll say we ran a campaign where the most expensive and expansive commitment that we made to New Yorkers was about universal child care. And on day eight, far before people think the budget process typically begins, we announced that more than a $1 billion commitment right here, right now is one of those very commitments coming to life. And then over the course of this year, bringing those 2,000 seats online. We are not only confident of being able to bridge this fiscal deficit in partnership with the state, but we are also confident of advancing an affordability agenda that makes it easier to live in the city.
Question: Given that both of the alleged attackers at Gracie were said to be inspired by ISIS and given New York City's sort of perennial status as a soft target, I was wondering if you had any, you know, words of advice to any young people who might find themselves being drawn to that particular ideology.
Mayor Mamdani: I think first and foremost, just to make it clear to everyone that extremism and hatred of any kind will not be tolerated in our city. And that is regardless of whatever ideology motivates any person to commit an act of violence; there is no tolerance for it here. What we want to deliver to New Yorkers is a city that is safe, is a city that believes in the values where everyone who calls it home is considered to be a part of it. There is no tolerance for any kind of violence within that vision of our city or the way in which we lead the city.
Question: The last time we spoke, we talked about home-based providers and how important they will be for this particular initiative. Do we know at this time from those 1,000 seats that will be available in the fall, how many are going to be, and what percentage will be home providers? And also, can you expand a little for parents with children with special needs, whether they will have accommodations? We have many parents who are always asking about the help from the city on that.
Mayor Mamdani: So, I think, you know, the chancellor said it in his remarks, and I want to just underline it as well. We are building a system for every single child. And for far too long, parents have had to ask themselves that question. They have had to ask themselves whether there is room for their child. And this is a system that we are building to finally meet the needs across the board. I don't know, chancellor, if you want to add something.
Schools Chancellor Samuels: This is something we've heard. I heard it as a superintendent, and I hear it now as a chancellor. Our system, and certainly in our early childhood and early years, is so critical that we make sure that it is available to everyone, including and especially our families with students with disabilities.
Question: What about the percentage of home-based providers?
Mayor Mamdani: Before passing it over to Emmy, I'll just say that home-based providers are a critical part of the network of early childhood care. And I was honestly taken by surprise when I was told that I may be the first mayor to have ever visited a home-based provider. These are at the core of what makes it possible for the city to meet the wide variety of needs. I'm speaking about needs not just in terms of location but also linguistic needs and cultural needs.
What we are speaking about is a service that will be offered in a wide variety of languages as well. And that's important. This is a city where the world is at home. We also need to be able to deliver services to this city that do not make any New Yorker feel as if their place isn't within a universal 3-K or 2-K.
Executive Director Liss: We have not identified a specific allocation to different types of providers, but as the mayor said, home-based child care providers will be a critical part of 3-K and especially 2-K. And we're really looking forward to expanding our partnership and making sure that these providers are able to participate in a way that works for them and recognizes the unique needs of family child care.
Question: Mr. Mayor, during the campaign, you spoke movingly about the pain you felt about getting death threats because of your religion. And I wonder if, when you had these demonstrators on the steps of where you now live, if you feel that same pain, and if you've been getting death threats and other things that really are inappropriate for somebody in your position. Can you talk about what it personally means to you?
Mayor Mamdani: I first just want to say that I'm deeply thankful to the men and women of the NYPD, many of whom are on my security detail and ensure that I am safe, that my wife is safe, and that we do not have to worry about our ability to go about our days. I do not have to worry about my ability to carry out the responsibility that I have to New Yorkers.
And I'll say, Marcia, the thing that affects me more is not the language that people use to describe me, but that it's the language that they use to describe so many who call the city home. And even in that protest, there is a vision of a city that does not leave room for more than a million Muslims who call the city their home. And it is a vision that I abhor. I also still do believe that those protesters have a right to protest, and that is part of what it means to be able to stand up for the laws of the city as well as the constitution of our country.
Question: [Inaudible] is there respect for everybody's issue, that we really need to have a city where there's respect for everybody: Muslims, Jews, Catholics, everybody and that the protests that happened on your doorstep showed no respect for anybody?
Mayor Mamdani: I think we do need a city that has respect for every single New Yorker. And that's the city that I grew up in. That's the city that I love. I know that's a city that still exists. And I also think that oftentimes when we see these kinds of displays, they are not coming from New Yorkers. The protests that we're speaking about we're talking about people who come from out of state with a vision of a city that does not match up to the one that we love and that we live in.
And I look forward, frankly, to the act of building something together, because what I truly appreciate about the teachers and the staff here today is that they are raising the next generation, and they are raising them with a love not only of their city, but also of themselves. Every single one of those children that greeted us as we walked in here was proud of who they were. They were proud of where they call their home. They're proud of their city. And we want to have a city where no one feels as if they have to fit themselves into a box in order to be able to live in the place, they call home.
Question: [Inaudible]... is this something that's in your head?
Mayor Mamdani: No matter the attempts, I will never be ashamed of who I am. I'll never be ashamed of my faith. I'll never be ashamed of the things that make me, me. And I'll say growing up in this city, one of the things that I loved most was the understanding that I was taught that difference of where we come from, of what faiths we belong to, if any, and of what we believe, it is not a marker of separation. Rather, it is an invitation to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.
Question: I wanted to ask you, budget-wise, the City Council today put out their own forecast on it. They say that there's more than a billion dollars in savings in the budget. I want to know how seriously are you considering that because they don't want you to dip into the Rainy-Day Fund at all.
And I wanted to ask you about Elizabeth Street Garden. The last mayor tried to stop that from becoming housing. You want to make that housing. Where is that proposal right now? Do you see yourself maybe asking the legislature not to turn it into official park grounds? Where's the plan as of today?
Mayor Mamdani: The last mayor actually took a number of different positions on it. What we inherited from the last mayor is something that we are assessing at this time. As I shared after the campaign, I think it was during the transition that the final acts of the previous administration are incredibly restrictive in terms of what the future can look like. However, we will make it clear to the public once we have fully assessed it.
When it comes to your first question, we are committed to working with the Council to tackle the $5.4 billion fiscal deficit that we inherited. However, the savings plan that was put forward frankly raises more questions than it answers. The Council's vacancy plan, for example, does not account for the work that we have already done in our preliminary budget to both responsibly reduce unfilled positions without also sacrificing service delivery. The current proposal that you're referring to would remove more than a billion dollars from personnel budgets across city agencies. That would make it significantly harder for agencies to hire teachers, police officers, nurses, other essential public servants who keep the city running every day.
We share the Council's goal in identifying real savings. We appreciate the fact that they have come to the conclusion of the same amount of revenue. However, we're not going to pursue those savings in a manner that undermines the city's ability to function or deliver the services that the city relies on.
Question: You sort of touched on this already, but what is your message right now to the Muslim community?
Mayor Mamdani: My first message is Ramadan Kareem. We are - what day are we on? Is it 21? We're on day 21. So, as you asked me this, I'm fasting for Ramadan. My message is that you need not be ashamed of yourself to be a part of this city. You need not feel as if your identity is somehow in tension with being a New Yorker. I am proud to be a Muslim. I'm proud to be a New Yorker. I'm proud to be a Muslim New Yorker. I know that's the case for a million or so people who call this city home.
This month is actually my favorite month of the year. It's a month that I look forward to. It's a month that I miss. It's often a month that's characterized purely by the fact that we fast from sunup to sundown. No food, no water, nothing of that kind. However, it is a month that has a much deeper resonance for me and for many others in that it's one of reflection, one of a reconnection to yourself, to your faith, and to a larger community.
I was actually here on Staten Island, maybe about a week or two ago, for Taraweeh prayers at MAS Staten Island, and to meet so many Staten Islanders for whom that is their same experience of being Muslim, of being a part of Ramadan. It was a joy, and it continues to be a privilege to serve this city, and it continues to be a privilege to offer an example to this city, to people of all faiths and all backgrounds, that you can be yourself and be proud of that and be a part of the same city that we all love. Thank you.
