Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC NOW, your source for local news in and around New York City, from WNYC. It's Wednesday, April 16th. Here's the midday news. I'm Janae Pierre.

New York State lawmakers have reached a tentative agreement on a key issue that was holding up state budget talks. As WNYC's Jon Campbell reports, it wasn't with the governor.

Jon Campbell: Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie says lawmakers struck a deal directly with district attorneys on the issue of pretrial discovery.

Carl Heastie: The governor always said to me she wanted the DAs to be in a good place. The DAs seem to be in a very good place.

Jon Campbell: Hochul has been insisting on changes to the discovery laws, which set deadlines for prosecutors to share evidence with the defense. The state reformed those laws six years ago, but Hochul and prosecutors say that's led to too many dismissals. Hochul told reporters there "could be a resolution in sight on the issue," which has been the biggest logjam in budget negotiations. The budget was due before April 1st.

Janae Pierre: Lawyers are asking a judge to block the NYPD from arresting people for low-level offenses that should result in tickets. Under a 2019 state law, police are supposed to issue summonses, not make arrests for many nonviolent crimes. Data shows the NYPD has been doing the opposite. Meghan Philip is with the Legal Aid Society.

Meghan Philip: This ruling could not be more urgent given what we're seeing – NYPD continuing to violate New Yorkers' rights and not to follow the mandate of the law.

Janae Pierre: Legal Aid is using a 2021 protest lawsuit to push the issue before a judge. That follows two recent deaths in NYPD custody involving ticket-eligible charges. The NYPD says there are legal exemptions that sometimes require officers to detain people instead.

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48 degrees and mostly cloudy today at 12:06.

David Furst: I'm David Furst. Thousands of working parents in New York could lose their child care voucher in the coming year if the state and city don't figure out a way to come up with more money. WNYC's Karen Yi joins us now to explain. Karen, start us off by explaining how these child care vouchers help families. Who are they for?

Karen Yi: Well, these vouchers make child care affordable and possible, really, for low-income and working parents. Families receiving vouchers pay anywhere from $5 to $25 a week. If you've ever paid for daycare before, you know how expensive it can be. Families can also use them to cover the cost of after-school care. Now, we know most New Yorkers just can't afford the cost of child care, so it's among the top reasons that young families are fleeing the city and moving to other states.

Child care can average about $20,000 a year, and it's almost as much as your rent in many cases. This voucher really knocks off a huge amount off that expense line for families. It's really a lifeline, and 150,000 families across the state rely on it. Parents can go to work or work a full day and be able to afford care.

David Furst: Okay. Why are child care vouchers now at risk in the state budget?

Karen Yi: Right. Governor Kathy Hochul has proposed keeping funding flat for the program, but here's the problem with flat funding.

1. The state made more families eligible for the voucher by expanding income requirements. That means a family of four earning $108,000 a year can qualify.
2. The state increased how much child care providers get reimbursed when they take vouchers at their facilities. Child care workers are not paid very well, and providers often operate right at the margins.
3. The city is bringing back work requirements for the lowest-income New Yorkers who are on cash assistance. What this means is that people who weren't working full time or were staying at home with their kids will need to return to work in order to keep their benefits. By law, the city has to prioritize giving child care vouchers to cash assistance recipients first.

Now, what that all means is that low-income families could get kicked off the program to make room for the lowest-income families, those who rely on cash assistance.

David Furst: Yes. Let's go through this. The program costs more, you have more families eligible for it, and now there are more families who will soon need to use the program, but still the same amount of money.

Karen Yi: Yes, that's exactly right. The consequences of these three factors is that new families who are eligible won't be able to sign up, and families currently on the program could lose their voucher. Dede Hill is the policy director at the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy.

Dede Hill: Does one parent leave the workforce? Do they patch something together that maybe is not particularly high quality, or even unsafe? There are no good choices.

Karen Yi: She says this could also force families to have to leave the city.

David Furst: Very difficult. What are parents saying about the possibility of losing their voucher?

Karen Yi: I think a lot of parents don't know how the state budget debate could impact their household budget. I did speak to Mancy Meikle, who uses the voucher to cover the cost of after-school care for her three kids, and for days when schools are closed, like this week, for spring break.

Mancy Meikle: You're literally putting people in survival mode when you do this, because now you have to be running around trying to figure out-- because you can't leave your child. It's not like, "Oh, you have a choice." It's either work or your child. It's always going to be the child.

Karen Yi: Meikle is on cash assistance, so she wouldn't be directly impacted by losing a voucher. She says she knows what it's like not to be able to afford child care and how hard it is just to afford to live in the city right now.

Mancy Meikle: We are already struggling with our $18 a dozen eggs, okay? Then to put on top of that, not only are you not going to be able to go to work – you can't, you don't have child care – but you might not be able to feed your kid. Oh no. Oh no, no, no.

Karen Yi: The average voucher for families costs about $300 a week per child, which is a huge relief for the family budget. I think it's also important to mention that there are child care providers who rely on voucher payments to be able to stay open. If half or more of the families are paying you with vouchers, if they lose those vouchers, you could lose those families, and then daycare providers might be forced to shut down.

David Furst: How many families could be at risk of losing their subsidized care?

Karen Yi: Right now, there are about 80,000 families in the city who rely on these vouchers. New York City officials estimate 4,000 to 7,000 families could lose their vouchers every month. This would happen as families go to prove that they still qualify for the voucher, but instead, the city would say you qualify, but there's no more money for you. City officials have estimated that 40,000 families receiving cash assistance are going to need child care vouchers. That could kick off low-income families who make too much to qualify for public assistance, but not enough to afford child care.

Across the state, the situation is already dire. Ten counties have closed enrollment, including Westchester, Nassau, and Suffolk counties, because they're expecting to run out of money. That means new families can't get vouchers, and families recertifying can't stay on the vouchers. Peter Nabozny is the policy director at The Children's Agenda. He put it this way.

Peter Nabozny: You go, you apply, you qualify, but "Sorry, we're closed. Come back again later when we reopen." In other places, they are operating a wait list so that when they do decide that they have enough funding to reopen, they'll go to the people who've been on the list the longest.

Karen Yi: He says counties are running out of money with what the state allocated for this year because of the increase in enrollment. That's only going to get worse if more money isn't added to the program.

David Furst: If more money isn't added to the program. Where are we headed here? How much money is needed to make up the voucher shortfall?

Karen Yi: Well, advocates in the city say anywhere from 500 to 900 million is needed. The Senate has proposed adding 50 million, the assembly 200 million, which is very shy of what they say. The city also contributes a small fraction toward vouchers, and that has remained flat for years. State officials and advocates say the city can also increase their contributions to make sure families aren't left without care.

David Furst: Okay. We'll have to keep following the story. We'll hear much more from you on this in the weeks ahead. WNYC's Karen Yi, thank you for joining us.

Karen Yi: Thanks, David.

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Janae Pierre: Thanks for listening. This is NYC NOW from WNYC. Check us out for updates every weekday, three times a day, for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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