![\"Rivera](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770961452_671_.png\")
<\/p>\nBUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) \u2014 The goal is to make childcare free for every child in New York State, but how?<\/p>\n
New York State started a pilot program, giving $20 million to participating counties, with each county contributing 10%. Several opted in, but Erie County did not.<\/p>\n
“That was quite surprising and astounding to me,” said Vonetta T. Rhodes, co-founder of the WNY Childcare Action Team. “Turning away an opportunity to have more funding and support more children and families who need it.”<\/p>\n
I asked county officials about it. They say it’s because the state actually owes them money for the current childcare assistance program they’re in.<\/p>\n
On February 10, County Executive Mark Poloncarz sent a letter to Albany acknowledging frustration with the choice to opt out.<\/p>\n
“I would love to offer universal childcare in Erie County, but I cannot do so while running a deficit and administering a waitlist for the CCAP program,” Poloncarz wrote. “I would certainly reconsider Erie County\u2019s participation in the pilot program if the current funding gap was eliminated.”<\/p>\n
WATCH: ‘We can do it’: State leaders host roundtable discussion about childcare in Erie County<\/p>\n
‘We can do it’: State leaders host roundtable discussion about childcare in Erie County<\/p>\n
What’s next?<\/p>\n
On February 12, State Senator April Baskin and Assemblyman Jon Rivera gathered childcare experts to talk about where to go from here.<\/p>\n
“We did need more conversation. I was uncomfortable that a decision had just been made,” said Baskin. “I don’t think anybody wants to say no to the pilot forever; we just have these other barriers in our way.”<\/p>\n
Those barriers include receiving the money from CCAP and making sure wages are high enough to support universal childcare.<\/p>\n
“They need to be able to support themselves so they can deliver the quality care that children deserve,” said Trina Burruss, President & CEO of United Way of Buffalo and Erie County.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Taylor Epps<\/p>\n
Rivera and Baskin at the roundtable<\/p>\n
Baskin and Rivera plan on bringing that information back to Albany and fighting for more resources.<\/p>\n
“We can do it, we can change this as Erie County, we can build a system of childcare,” said Rhodes.<\/p>\n
“We’ve got engaged government officials, and we have strong non-profits,” said Burruss. “We’ve got the recipes, it’s just time to bake it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) \u2014 The goal is to make childcare free for every child in New York State,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[25781,136,138,137,237],"class_list":["post-112777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-childcare","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-new-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}